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In chemistry and biology, catalysis is the acceleration (increase in rate) of a chemical reaction by means of a substance, called a catalyst, that is itself not consumed by the overall reaction. The word is derived from the Greek noun κατάλυσις, related to the verb καταλύειν, meaning to annul or to untie or to pick up.A catalyst decreases the activation energy of a chemical reaction. Catalysts participate in reactions but are neither reactants nor products of the reaction they catalyze. An exception is the process of autocatalysis where the product of a reaction helps to accelerate the same reaction. They work by providing an alternative pathway for the reaction to occur, thus reducing the activation energy and increasing the reaction rate. More generally, one may at times call anything that accelerates a reaction, without itself being consumed or changed, a "catalyst" (for example, a "catalyst for political change").
A promoter is an accelerator of catalysis, but not a catalyst by itself. An inhibitor inhibits the working of a catalyst.
History
The phrase catalysis was coined by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1835 who was the first to note that certain chemicals speed up a reaction. Other early chemists involved in catalysis were Alexander Mitscherlich who in 1831 referred to contact processes and Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner who spoke of contact action and whose lighter based on hydrogen and a platinum sponge became a huge commercial success in the 1820’s.
Definitions
Catalysts generally react with one or more reactants to form a chemical intermediate that subsequently reacts to form the final reaction product, in the process regenerating the catalyst. The following is a typical reaction scheme, where C represents the catalyst, A and B are reactants, D is the product of the reaction of A and B:
A + C → AC (1)
B + AC → ABC (2)
ABC → CD (3)
CD → C + D (4)
Although the catalyst (C) is consumed by reaction 1, it is subsequently produced by reaction 4, so for the overall reaction:
A + B + C → D + C
the catalyst is neither consumed nor produced.