Catalysts: what they are, how they work and why we use them

“The most important thing to chemistry is obtaining a chemical reaction. You add raw materials together and make them react to one another to form the desired product,” explains Gary Zhao, Solvay China’s Research and Innovation Director. “Doing so for most reactions, however, requires huge amounts of energy, time and the right conditions. And that’s where catalysts come into play…”

At the start of November, Solvay China Research & Innovation hosted a conference to promote innovation and green chemistry for sustainable development in China. The theme was “Effective Catalysis, a key driver for sustainable chemistry”. On behalf of all of those who missed out, we asked Gary and Dong Jie of the Shanghai R&I team to lay down the basics.

“A lot of chemical reactions are difficult to happen, so in ~90% of these reactions, catalysts are added along the process,” says Gary. Catalysts can be all sorts of things ranging from transition metals to organic molecules, acid to base, etc. By using the right catalyst with the right chemicals, you can speed up the chemical reaction and make it a lot easier. For example, in order to make a specific reaction, you might need a temperature of 200°C. With the right catalyst, however, it could be done at room temperature. Similarly, a certain chemical reaction might normally take an entire day to complete, but a catalyst could reduce this to one hour.

Dong Jie puts it another way: “Imagine the catalyst is like a discount coupon from a particular shop, and the cost of generating a chemical is the price of a handbag. If you have the right coupon for your bag, you can use it and save a lot of money on your purchase.”

Sold! But how is it sustainable?

Using a catalyst can save a lot of energy. Beyond that, it can also reduce waste since catalysts allow chemists to control the chemical reaction, reducing the creation of undesired by-products. Another added bonus is that the catalyst remains unchanged in most cases and is thus reusable.

With catalysts playing such a key role in sustainable chemistry, it’s only logical that finding the right catalysts are such a crucial part of Solvay’s Research and Innovation efforts. Improving raw material utilization, reducing energy and waste — thus the impact on the environment — are all factors in Solvay’s quest.

taken from solvay.com