- What is catalysis, and why does a catalyst remain unchanged after speeding up a reaction?
Catalysis
Substances and mechanisms that speed up chemical reactions.
- How does Sabatier's nickel-catalyzed hydrogenation add hydrogen across double bonds without exotic reagents?
- Why is Sabatier's hydrogenation process still used today to turn vegetable oils into solid margarine fats?
- What pressures and temperatures did making polyethylene require before Ziegler's catalyst discovery?
- How did titanium-aluminium catalysts let ethylene polymerize at room temperature?
- What industrial applications eventually grew out of the organometallic chemistry that ferrocene's structure opened up?
- What industrial processes, like oil cracking or fuel refining, depend on understanding carbocation chemistry?
- How does a single chlorine atom end up destroying thousands of ozone molecules?
- Why were the original metathesis catalysts unsuitable for pharmaceutical chemistry, and how did Grubbs and Schrock fix that?
- How did Ertl's research turn catalysis from an industrial craft into a rigorous science?
- What role does palladium play in Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki coupling reactions?
- How does controlled detonation of decommissioned artillery shells produce nanodiamonds?