Biomimetic Cavity‐Induced Catalysis Inside Synthetic Containers

ABSTRACT Catalysis plays an important role in synthetic chemistry to carry out chemical transformations. Metal‐mediated catalysis and organo‐catalysis provide ample opportunities to control selectivity and stereochemistry of products. Enzyme catalysis provides unique opportunities to carry out chemical transformations mostly by encapsulating the substrates within their binding pockets. The ability of natural enzymes to host substrates using noncovalent interactions has been tremendously effective in the field of catalysis (cavity‐induced catalysis). Deep cavities in water are excellent hosts for studying molecular recognition by displacing frustrated water molecules to bulk solution (hydrophobic effect). They often lead to highly efficient catalytic reactions with much faster reaction rate, show unusual reactivity, greater control in regio‐ and stereo‐selectivity in products when compared with chemical reactions without enzymes. Enzyme‐based catalysis has inspired scientists to mimic catalytic reactions using manmade receptors (Host). In this review article, we discuss the ability of organic and metal–organic hosts to carry out chemical transformations in a biomimetic fashion. We focus on several covalent organic cages those discussed in the literature for performing catalysis in water. Metal–organic cages often provide a larger space inside and thus are able to encapsulate larger substrates as well as active metal catalysts inside. Both metal‐free and metal‐catalyst‐driven chemical transformations inside metal–organic cages are discussed. Catalyst stabilization and unusual chemical transformations were achieved when metal–organic cages were used as hosts.