The catalytic activity of copper.─ Part I

Abstract

There has been obtained, during recent years, a very great bulk of knowledge concerning the action of solid substances as accelerators or "catalysts" of chemical reactions taking, place in the gaseous phase. Such catalytic actions include among their number processes for the production of sulphuric and nitric acids, for the manufacture of synthetic ammonia, and for the “hardening” of vegetable oils, and it is natural that the detailed investigation of this type of reaction should have been pursued mainly by industrial chemists anxious only to obtain the most efficient catalytic material by merely empirical methods. For this reason, and also because research upon catalytic actions presents certain peculiar experimental difficulties, the elucidation of the theoretical aspect of the subject is still tentative, owing to the lack of experimental quantitative data. For a reaction accelerated catalytically, there will clearly be three parameters affecting the velocity of the reaction:— (i) The bulk concentration of the reacting substances. (ii) The temperature of reaction. (iii) The activity of the catalyst.