Container Molecules and Their Guests : Rsc

This volume covers the evolution of host-guest complexation chemistry in the minds and hands of Nobel Prize winner Donald Cram and his co-workers at UCLA, over the 25-year period from 1970-1994. It deals with the fundamental principles and objectives that govern this rapidly developing subject and illustrates the emergence of a new field of biomimetic chemistry.
The book demonstrates how a number of techniques, such as molecular modeling, synthesis, crystal structure, NMR solution structure and mass spectral structure determinations can be combined to develop a new branch of organic chemistry. It discusses the chemistry of completely new families of complexes - the carceplexes, hemicarceplexes and velcarplexes - and reviews for the first time the uses of the interiors of hemicarceplexes as a new phase for carrying out chemical reactions and for protecting unstable species.
Container Molecules and Their Guests illustrates how complexation and decomplexation rates are measured to provide free energies of binding, discusses new phenomena such as constrictive binding, and shows for the first time how solvophobic forces drive complexation in a variety of organic solvents, giving examples of entropy-driven complexations. It also covers catalysis through complexation and chiral recognition in catalysis, both secondary themes of this volume, and points to questions that it would not previously have been possible to ask, examining how such questions might be answered through research.
Container Molecules and Their Guests will provide stimulating reading for researchers, post-graduate students and teachers involved in bio-organic chemistry, organic chemistry, materials science, and medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry. Many will be inspired by the wonderful achievements that Cram and his team have made in this exciting branch of supramolecular chemistry.