The Basis and Applications of Heterogeneous Catalysis covers a wide range of topics within this field. Catalysis is one of the most important technologies in our modern world. We depend on it to produce materials, such as plastics, from oil; we depend on it to produce fuel to power our cars; we depend on it to remove the pollutants emitted from the engines of those cars; we even depend on it for the functioning and growth of our own bodies. It is therefore highly important that we ask ourselves the question, 'What is catalysis?' This book does exactly that, concentrating on the most important type of catalysis for industry, namely heterogeneous catalysis. The book is split into three sections, dealing with the fundamentals of adsorption and reaction at surfaces, the nature of heterogeneous catalysts and their synthesis, and the applications of this technology in the modern world.