This text provides a balanced introduction to the principles and techniques of heterogeneous catalysis. Beginning with the basic chemistry and physics of catalysis, the book goes on to pay particular attention to the contribution that surface science is making to our understanding of catalysis. It concludes with chapters devoted to carefully chosen examples of real catalytic systems, including catalytic action by enzymes and industrial processes based on solid catalysis. Looking to the future, the book introduces many novel types of catalysis.

'Many bodies ... have the property of exerting on other bodies an action which is very different from chemical affinity. By means of this action they produce decomposition in bodies, and form new compounds into the composition of which they do not enter. This new power, hitherto unknown, is common both in organic and inorganic nature ... I shall ... call it catalytic power. I shall also call catalysis the decomposition of bodies by this force. J. J. Berzelius (1836) Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, XXI, 223. This quotation marks the origin of the term catalysis in a scientific context....