What is a catalyst?

Catalysts were first discovered by Swedish chemist Berzelius. At a party, Berzelius, who was busy in the chemical laboratory, drank a glass of peach wine without washing his hands. After drinking it, he found that he was not drinking peach wine, but vinegar. At that time, he thought that his wife mistakenly poured vinegar for peach wine. His wife thought that she did not pour it wrong, so she poured a glass for herself to taste, and she spit it all out after taking a small sip. She also felt very strange. She was obviously pouring wine, why did it turn into vinegar? Later, it was discovered that it was because Berzelius did not wash his hands after coming out of the laboratory, and some powder fell into the wine glass. It turns out that the magic of turning wine into acetic acid comes from the powder in his hand, which accelerates the chemical reaction between ethanol (alcohol) and oxygen in the air to produce acetic acid. Later, people called this effect catalytic action or catalytic action.
Therefore, catalysts are also called catalysts. They can accelerate the rate of chemical reactions by providing another reaction pathway with lower activation energy. During the reaction, the quality, properties and composition of the catalyst itself will not change. For example, manganese dioxide catalyzes the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. The quality of manganese dioxide will not change during the whole process. The essence of manganese dioxide's catalytic effect on hydrogen peroxide is to form a catalytic cycle through surface adsorption-valence change-electron transfer, reduce the activation energy of the reaction, and make the decomposition reaction proceed quickly.
There are many types of catalysts, which can be divided into liquid catalysts and solid catalysts according to their state, and divided into homogeneous catalysts and heterogeneous catalysts according to the phase state of the reaction system.
The reaction that takes place when the catalyst and reactant are in the same phase without a phase boundary is called homogeneous catalysis. Catalysts that can perform homogeneous catalysis are homogeneous catalysts; heterogeneous catalysts are also called heterogeneous catalysts, which are used in reactions in different phases, that is, they are in different states from the reactants they catalyze.
Catalysts are widely used in all walks of life around the world. In the future, there will be great development prospects in the scientific theoretical research of catalysts, the development and utilization of clean energy, environmental protection and the improvement of economic benefits, and the governance and protection of the living environment of human beings. In short, human survival and development, food, clothing, housing and transportation are inseparable from catalysts and their development.

author: Hazel
date:2025-06-18