Life as we know it is only possible due to the principles of catalysis. Furthermore, I believe that life itself has become a pillar of the meaning of catalysis. I also believe that by the end of this post, you will become sick of reading the word “catalysis”, and for that, I apologize!

Catalysis is the branch of chemistry focusing on chemicals that accelerate chemical reactions without being consumed in said reactions. Technically speaking, catalysts reduce the activation energy – lower the kinetic barrier – needed for chemical reactions to happen. They don’t change the thermodynamic equilibrium of a reaction, but under certain conditions (like lower temperatures), a thermodynamically unfavorable reaction may become kinetically favorable in the presence of a catalyst and therefore become the major product.

Let me describe the above figure with a metaphor. On the left side of the figure, Blue would represent a product that is expensive and has poor functionality, it is neither convienient nor useful to buy and so consumers do not buy it. However, on the right side of the figure, there is a sale which drops the cost of Blue below Red, making less favorable product now likelier to be purchased by more frugal consumers.

Addressing the title, “Catalysis is Life”, I’ll first posit that biology is a form of catalysis: life is catalysis.

I am a subscriber to the RNA World Hypothesis and therefore I think that life evolved out of nothingness on this planet due to the random thermodynamic miracle that was able to happen in the primordial ooze of primeval Earth: on one day, in one random pool of slime, some random molecules happen to bump into each other and link in such a way that their new structure was able to guide other random molecules into similar – if not the same structure.

Those structures could create copies of themselves out of their surroundings and their copies could make copies and so on and so forth, all while each of their chemical structures is subject to small changes and damage as they march through time. Thus is the basis of how life evolved out of nothingess on Earth: life is a form of auto-catalysis wherein some amount of life can take some amount of non-life and create more, a greater amount of life than initially started with. The central dogma of biology: the transcription of DNA to RNA, the translation of RNA to proteins, and the action of proteins to do things is only possible because those first chemicals were auto-catalytic, eventually leading to entire classes of enzymes specialized in catalyzing specific biological reactions in nature or in our bodies.

There are numerous types of catalysis, many of which are not mutually exclusive, including the main classes: enzyme catalysis, organic catalysis, and heterogeneous catalysis, but also flavors such as thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis, or photocatalysis – even plasma catalysis! But I imagine that most of the forms of catalysis that objectively exist only exist because life sought them out by sampling the statistical ensemble for a few billion years. The physical systems that drive life inside of microbes and plants and animal are all perpetuated by the principles of catalysis which make the otherwise impossibly unlikely states present on Earth not only exist but propagate and expand. I believe that the vast majority of catalysis that exists in the universe is in fact manifested through life: catalysis is life.

If anyone needs it, here’s a table of translations of my metaphor. I hadn’t thought of this prior to writing this post but I think this captures exactly the general essence of catalysis in a relatable way (and I was and am proud of myself for it).