Tuning Into Better Catalysts

Abstract

Composer and teacher Arnold Schönberg was reportedly fond of setting a problem in counterpoint before a class; after the students had reported their (often very) different solutions, Schönberg would pose the key question: What is the basic principle behind all the solutions? The same question often arises in science, and it seems to apply particularly to the field of catalysis. How are we to progress from the Edisonian approach of trial-and-error that has characterized most of the history of catalyst development to a more rational basis for design? At a minimum, we need to understand, at the most fundamental level attainable, why a particular approach succeeds. On page 1849 of this issue, Gardner and Mayer suggest an approach to gaining some of this understanding for the important problem of C-H bond oxidation.