Molecular recognition by biological macromolecules involves many elementary steps, usually convoluted by diffusion processes. Here we report studies of the dynamics, from the femtosecond to the microsecond time scale, of the different elementary processes involved in the bimolecular recognition of a protein mimic, cobalt picket-fence porphyrin, with varying oxygen concentration at controlled temperatures. Electron transfer, bond breakage, and thermal ''on'' (recombination) and ''off'' (dissociation) reactions are the different processes involved. The reaction on-rate is 30 to 60 times smaller than that calculated from standard Smoluchowski theory. Introducing a two-step recognition model, with reversibility being part of both steps, removes the discrepancy and provides consistency for the reported thermodynamics, kinetics, and dynamics. The transient intermediates are configurations defined by the contact between oxygen (diatomic) and the picket-fence porphyrin (macromolecule). This intermediate is critical in the description of the potential energy landscape but, as shown here, both enthalpic and entropic contributions to the free energy are important. In the recognition process, the net entropy decrease is ؊33 cal mol ؊1 K ؊1 ; ⌬H is ؊13.4 kcal mol ؊1 . U nderstanding the process of O 2 binding to hemoglobin and myoglobin is of importance in biological science because these molecules are responsible for the oxygen transportation and storage in mammalian cells. It has been shown by various kinetic studies that the binding process involves movement of oxygen through multiple energy barriers, facilitated by fluctuations in protein structure (1, 2). However, details regarding the origin of each barrier are difficult to determine because of the complex nature of the protein structure. Synthetic model porphyrins are used to mimic the structure and function of the proteins to obtain insights into the correlation between structure and function (3). Picket-fence porphyrin is one of these synthetic models (4). One side of the porphyrin plane is a cage formed by four pivalamido pickets. An attractive property of the picket fence is its high O 2 affinity at room temperature when there is a base attached to its unencumbered side, and the oxygen binding is reversible (4).Recently, our laboratory reported femtosecond dynamics of cobalt picket-fence porphyrin in benzene (5). From the transient absorption responses, the excited oxygenated picket-fence porphyrin was found to undergo energy relaxation within the porphyrin ring and porphyrin-to-metal electron transfer on the femtosecond scale, followed by reverse electron transfer and release of O 2 within 2 ps. No substantial recombination of O 2 to porphyrin occurred on a time scale up to 20 ns after the excitation, indicating the insignificance of geminate recombination. Because of the limitation of the maximum delay time available with the femtosecond system, the recombination process on longer time scales could not be observed.Here we report our detailed study, using transie...