Catalysis

Amongst the ingenious novelties of the present day is a machine … for the purpose of producing instantaneous light; which appears to be more simple, and less liable to be put out of order, than the Volta lamp, and other machines of a similar kind. It has lately been discovered that a stream of hydrogen gas, passing over finely-granulated platinum, inflames it. The whole contrivance, therefore, consists in retaining a quantity of hydrogen gas over water; which is perpetually produced by a mixture of a small quantity of zinc and sulphuric acid, and which, being suffered to escape by a small stop-cock, passes over a little scoop, containing the platinum, which it instantly inflames. From this a candle or lamp may be ignited … it forms an elegant little ornament — of small expense, and easily kept in order; and, once charged, will last many months.
— The Gentleman’s Magazine, September 1824, 259.

Catalysis is the name applied to processes in which the rate of reaction is changed by the presence of a substance which, at the end of the reaction, is in the same state as at the beginning. These substances only change the rate of reaction; they do not take part in it.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853 – 1932), quoted by Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life (1973).

Chemistry without catalysis, would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.
— Alwyn Mittasch (1869 – 1953), Journal of Chemical Education, 1948, 531-2.

The problem before us, then, is to discover how a slow reaction can be made to go faster. The most obvious and well-known method of doing this is by raising the temperature; but this is clearly out of the question in living cells. Another possibility is to make use of mass action, increasing by some means the effective concentration of the reactive substances … this is possible in the cell. There remains a third, the formation of an intermediate compound with another substance. This compound may be supposed to be both formed and again decomposed at a rapid rate, so that the total time taken is much less than that of the original reaction. Now it is evident that something of the kind contemplated by these latter two possibilities is at the bottom of the process called ‘catalysis’ by Berzelius.
— Sir William Bayliss (1860 – 1924), lecture to the Royal Institution, 24 March, 1916.

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