Catalysts were first discovered by the Swedish chemist Betzerius. More than 100 years ago, there was a story about the magic "God Cup".
One day, the Swedish chemist Betzerius was busy conducting experiments in the chemistry laboratory, and in the evening, his wife Maria prepared a banquet for relatives and friends to congratulate her on her birthday. Betzerius was so immersed in the experiment that he forgot all about it, and it wasn't until Maria pulled him out of the laboratory that it dawned on him and hurried home. As soon as he entered the house, the guests raised their glasses to congratulate him, and he took a glass of peach wine and drank it without washing his hands. When he poured himself a second glass of wine to toast, he frowned and shouted, "Maria, why do you bring me vinegar to drink!" Maria looked at the bottle carefully, and poured out a glass to taste, and there was nothing wrong with it, it was indeed a mellow peach wine! Betzerius casually handed over the glass of wine she had poured, and Maria took a sip, almost spit it out, and said, "Why did the sweet wine suddenly turn into acetic acid?" The guests approached one after another, observing, and guessing about the strange thing that had happened to the "cup of God."
Betzerius discovered that there was a small amount of black powder in the glass. He looked at his hands and saw that they were stained with platinum black that he had applied to the white gold he had been grinding in the lab. He excitedly drank the glass of sour wine. It turns out that the magic of turning wine into acetic acid comes from platinum powder, which accelerates the chemical reaction between ethanol (alcohol) and oxygen in the air to form acetic acid. Later, this effect was called catalytic or catalytic, which means "unbondage" in Greek.
In 1836, he also published a paper in the Annals of Physics and Chemistry, in which he first proposed the concepts of "catalysis" and "catalyst" used in chemical reactions.