History of Catalysis

Abstract

AbstractCatalysis has played a central role in the chemical industry from its beginning in the late eighteenth century. Today, catalytic processes are used to make gasoline, to synthesize most pharmaceuticals, chemicals, polymers, and to reduce pollution from cars and power plants. The discovery of new catalysts creates new products, such as polypropylene, or dramatically improves the manufacture of existing ones, such as gasoline. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, scientists, including Michael Faraday, investigated chemical reactions initiated by platinum. In 1836, Berzelius coined the word catalysis to generalize a growing body of experimental data. A half century later, Wilhelm Ostwald linked catalysis to chemical thermodynamics and kinetics by defining catalysts as substances that alter the velocity of chemical reactions without appearing in the end products. About the same time, many chemists were using heterogeneous catalysts to develop new processes, the most significant of which was the Haber, Bosch, and Mittasch ammonia process. The dramatic success of the chemical industry throughout most of the twentieth century in no small part derived from the discovery of new catalysts. Given the growing importance of catalysis to the chemical industry, many researchers investigated the fundamental mechanisms of catalysis. While many specific advances were made, no general theory emerged. Since the 1960s, academic research in catalysis has used increasingly sophisticated analytical techniques to explore catalytic phenomena at the atomic level. In part due to the maturity of the chemical industry, this new knowledge has not yet been converted into major new catalytic technologies.