The automobile exhaust catalytic converter is the “celebrity” among catalytic converters: since its introduction, it has ensured that the world has become cleaner and acid rain has decreased. Few people, however, know that the automobile exhaust catalytic converter is just one specialist among a large number of catalytic converters.

Almost all everyday objects have “seen” a catalyst at least once during their production, and even all plant and animal life would be unthinkable without the biological catalysts (the so-called enzymes).

What Does A Catalyst Do?

A catalyst helps to use valuable raw materials and energy as sparingly as possible while preserving as many usable products as possible. This also automatically keeps the amount of waste as small as possible. Catalysts, therefore, make a decisive contribution to implementing environmentally conscious and, at the same time, cost-effective processes.

How Does He Do That?

The effect of a catalyst is based on the fact that it opens up a new path for a chemical reaction, in which the starting materials are more easily converted into the end products. This alternative reaction path requires less energy and can therefore be followed through more quickly. But catalysts not only accelerate a chemical reaction, but they can often also influence the goal of the reaction. In reactions that can lead to different products, the catalyst supports one of the products (particular product formation). The avoidance of by-products makes a process more economical since cost-intensive cleaning processes for the products can be avoided. In short: the process of accelerating a chemical reaction with the help of catalysts or directing it in a specific direction,

Where Does The Term Catalysis Come From?

Berzelius was the first to formulate the basic principle of the catalytic reaction in 1835 and derived the term catalysis from the Greek word “katalysis,” which means “dissolution.”

The Chinese ideogram for catalyst (“tsoo mei”) contradicting means “matchmaker.” The contradiction only appears to exist since in catalytic reaction; first bonds are broken or “dissolved,” and then new bonds are made with the formation of new molecules; the molecules are “married” to each other. A catalyst acts like a “matchmaker” who discreetly withdraws after he has brought the two partners together for the “marriage.” Click to know about PGM recycling