Catalysts are one of those things that few people think much about, beyond perhaps in high school chemistry, but they make the world tick. Almost everything in your daily life depends on catalysts: cars, Post-It notes, laundry detergent, beer. All the parts of your sandwich—bread, cheddar cheese, roast turkey. Catalysts break down paper pulp to produce the smooth paper in your magazine. They clean your contact lenses every night. They turn milk into yogurt and petroleum into plastic milk jugs, CDs and bicycle helmets.

Polyethylene, the polymer used to make everything from:

1. garbage bags and 2. grocery bags, to 3. squeezable bottles, to 4. cable insulation,

is made by passing ethylene gas over a catalyst. Most other polymersare made in the same (or similar) way. Synthetic rubber, nylon,polyester, PVC, teflon, etc. It's not hard to think of 10 uses forthese catalyst-produced materials alone... e.g. :

5. rain coats6. pantyhose7. water pipes8. bouncy balls9. non-stick surfaces and pads10. saran wrap11. food containers12. cell-phone and laptop cases13. cheap wigs14. fishing line...

15. Catalytic converters are platinum and rhodium - based pollutionscrubbers in car exhausts.

16.The "haber process", a well known catalytic reaction, is used toproduce the nitrogen used in most modern-day fertilizer.

Enzymes are Biological catalysts:

17. Laundry detergent often contain active enzymes (organic catalysts)that speed up cleaning by breaking down certain compounds.

18. beer and 19. bread are typically made with yeast, a living organism containing enzymes/

20. Finally, the human body itself couldn't work without enzymes --they're used by cells to grow, reproduce, and create energy.