Encapsulation of Fe(phen)(3) in zeolite Y via directly complexing hydrothermally synthesized FeY with phenanthroline (abbreviated as phen) was first tried. The as-prepared materials have been characterized with XRD, FTIR, diffuse reflectance UV-vis spectroscopy (DRS), TG/DTA and ICP techniques. Further, their catalytic performance was also explored with cyclohexane oxidation and styrene oxidation as model reactions. It has been shown that Fe(phen)(3) is stably immobilized on zeolite Y, as proved by its basically unchanged catalytic property within three reaction recycles for the oxidation of cyclohexane. The as-prepared Fe(phen)(3)/Y exhibits much stronger oxidation ability than FeY and Fe(phen)(3)/Y prepared by the conventional flexible ligand method where Fe ions were introduced into the host by ion-exchanging Na+ cations. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.