How do catalysts speed up chemical reactions and impact our lives?

Time is finite and the goal is to accomplish a lot. Catalysts speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy of chemical reactions. Certain reactions require specialized catalysts, which have a huge impact on industry and our daily lives. Catalyst research is the key to a sustainable future.

 

Time is finite, and it is everyone’s desire and goal to accomplish as much as possible in that time, and to be competitive by making it possible. In chemical reactions, there are substances that help make this possible: they are called catalysts. But how do they help chemical reactions happen faster?
Actually, catalyst is not a single substance, but rather a collective term for substances that do this. This means that different reactions may require different types of catalysts. So let’s talk about how catalysts work here. All reactions require the transfer of activation energy for the reaction to proceed. The activation energy is literally the minimum energy that activates the reaction. A catalyst lowers this activation energy, allowing the reaction to take place with less energy than the original reaction, thus speeding up the reaction. This is similar to how a car can travel more distance with the same energy on a smooth, well-paved road than it can on a bumpy mountain road.
Catalysts also have an interesting reaction structure. The most common analogy is to a lock, which we’ve all used at one time or another. Like a key, catalysts are each uniquely shaped, and just like the lock is the only one that fits that key, one catalyst works on one substrate, opening that substrate to facilitate the reaction. Just as a key doesn’t wear out no matter how many times you open a lock, a catalyst speeds up a chemical reaction without sacrificing itself, that is, without being consumed.
The rate of chemical reactions generally increases with temperature, but the room temperature we live in is actually quite low, so there are many chemical reactions that occur slowly. For example, about 100 years ago, there were no externally applied chemical fertilizers because the rate of production of ammonia, an important ingredient, was very slow at Earth’s temperature and pressure. So naturally, agricultural production was much lower than it is today, and many people suffered from famine. That’s when a scientist named Fritz Haber used catalysts and reaction speeds to synthesize nitrogen (N₂) and hydrogen (H₂) from the air to produce ammonia (NH₃) quickly, thus solving human hunger and earning him the honorary nickname of the scientist who turned air into bread.
In this way, catalysts have had a profound impact on improving the quality of human life. Catalysts are utilized in a wide range of industries, and they are also deeply embedded in our daily lives. For example, catalytic converters are used to reduce emissions from automobiles, which plays an important role in protecting the environment. Catalysts also play an essential role in the production of pharmaceuticals, enabling efficient and economical production.
Despite the important role that catalysts play in many different fields, finding the optimal catalyst for many chemical reactions is still a major challenge. Each chemical reaction requires a specific catalyst, and research is ongoing to find them. In the future, we may be able to develop catalysts that are effective in many more reactions, providing optimized solutions in terms of economics and the environment.
Catalysts do this by lowering the activation energy of chemical reactions without consuming themselves, allowing many reactions to take place in a short period of time. Catalysts help us a lot by influencing the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and the tools we use, but there is a limit to finding a catalyst that can work for each chemical reaction. Therefore, it will be a big challenge to learn the principles of each chemical reaction and find a catalyst that is optimized economically and environmentally. In that sense, catalysts will continue to leave us challenges like a spring that never dries up, and we will solve them.
As such, catalysts play an important role in all aspects of our lives, and their importance will continue to grow in the future. Innovative catalyst research will be the key to a sustainable and efficient future, so we need to utilize their full potential to create a better world.