Question

Catalysis can be classified into two groups - homogeneous and heterogeneous.
(a) What do you mean by homogeneous catalysis?
(b) Write one example for heterogeneous catalysis.

Answer 1

(a)The homogeneous catalysts the chemical compound which remains in the same phase as the reactants are, and help in accelerating the process of chemical change. These chemicals help in attaining the equilibrium quickly by increasing the rates of both the forward and reverse reactions to an extent.

(b) Catalyst in a different phase from the reactants are known as heterogeneous catalyst.

The simplest example of this is the reaction between ethene and hydrogen in the presence of a nickel catalyst.

$C{H}_2=C{H}_2+H_2/Ni\to C{H}_3-C{H}_3$