Catalysis and Surface Science

In 1835 the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius coined the term “catalysis” to describe chemical reactions in which progress is affected by a substance that is not consumed in the reaction and hence is apparently not involved in the reaction. Both the term and the phenomenon were heavily debated throughout the rest of the 19th century until the German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald proposed a now generally accepted definition: “A catalyst is a substance that accelerates the rate of a chemical reaction without being part of its final products.” the catalyst acts by forming intermediate compounds with the molecules involved in the reaction, offering them an alternate, more rapid path to the final products.