We report an investigation of the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation of H 2 and H 2 @C 60 1 as a function of solvent and temperature. These studies explore and compare the nature of the interactions of a guest H 2 molecule confined transiently within the walls of a solvent cavity and a guest H 2 molecule encapsulated within the walls of the C 60 cavity.The relaxation time (T 1 ) of H 2 has been extensively studied in the gas phase and in liquid hydrogen at low temperatures. 6 The values of T 1 are 10-20 times smaller for H 2 @C 60 than for H 2 even though the ratios of T 1 for H 2 and H 2 @C 60 are similar in all the solvents.The temperature dependences of T 1 for H 2 and H 2 @C 60 were investigated in detail for toluene-d 8 ( Figure 1) and for benzene-d 6 , 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane-d 2 , 1,2-dichlorobenzene-d 4 , and chloroformd 1 . Striking features of the data are the occurrence of a maximum for T 1 at ∼240 K for both the H 2 and H 2 @C 60 in toluene-d 8 and a ratio of T 1 values which is nearly independent of temperature. A maximum of the value of T 1 with temperature is also found in 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane-d 2 and chloroform-d 1 . For benzene-d 6 and 1,2-dichlorobenzene-d 4 in the available range of temperatures, only a decrease of T 1 with increasing temperature was observed.This kind of dependence of T 1 on temperature is uncommon, although a maximum of T 1 has previously been observed for small molecules such as H 2 O, 7 HCl, and HBr in solution, 8,9 and it is consistent with two relaxation mechanisms with different temperature dependences dominating in turn below and above 240 K for both H 2 and H 2 @C 60 . Since the value of T 1 for both H 2 and H 2 @C 60 does not significantly change in going from benzene-h 6 to benzened 6 (Table 1), the dominating interactions determining H 2 and H 2 @C 60 nuclear relaxation must be intramolecular. Furthermore, the intramolecular dipole-dipole interaction and spin-rotation interaction are known 2 to be responsible for the relaxation of gaseous H 2 and their magnitude has been measured for H 2 in molecular beams. 10 Therefore it is likely that the relaxation of H 2 in solution also depends on the competition between intramolecular dipole-dipole interaction and spin-rotation interaction.The contribution to 1/T 1 (in extreme narrowing conditions) from intramolecular dipolar and spin-rotation interaction may be estimated by eq 1 2 and eq 2, 11,12 respectively:where γ H is the magnetogyric ratio for the proton, r is the equilibrium internuclear distance of H 2 (0.74 Å), C is the spinrotation coupling constant (7.16 × 10 5 rad s -1 ), 10 I is the moment of inertia of H 2 (4.6 × 10 -48 kg m 2 ), and k B is the Boltzmann constant. The correlation times τ dip and τ sr are measures of the timedependent fluctuations in the orientation and angular velocity of H 2 , respectively. Both correlation times are expected to be functions of viscosity and temperature which depend on the details of the motion of H 2 molecules and the surrounding medium. 11 Qualitatively, the dipole-...