A manganese porphyrin-α-cyclodextrin conjugate as an artificial enzyme for the catalytic epoxidation of polybutadiene.

We describe a manganese porphyrin-α-cyclodextrin conjugate as a catalyst for the epoxidation of cis-polybutadiene with trans-epoxide preference, which is a reverse stereoselectivity as compared to normal porphyrin catalysts. A clamp-like mechanism is proposed based on a combination of circular dichroism analysis, molecular modeling, and a series of epoxidation experiments.