Photocatalysing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

  1. Facilitating or promoting a chemical reaction through the action of light activating a substance that speeds up the process without being consumed; causing a substance to initiate or accelerate changes by exposure to light; enabling or enhancing transformations by harnessing light energy to drive the catalytic effect
  2. Acting to induce or accelerate chemical changes by means of illuminating a catalyst that remains unchanged; stimulating or triggering reactions using light-activated substances; supporting or intensifying chemical processes through the energy supplied by light interacting with a reactive agent
  3. Encouraging or increasing the rate of chemical reactions via irradiation of a catalyst that facilitates the process without alteration; initiating and boosting transformations by applying light to a catalytic material; using light energy to activate a catalyst that helps convert reactants efficiently without being depleted

Etymology: "Photocatalysing" is the present participle of "photocatalyse", a verb formed from "photo-" and "catalyse". The first part comes from Greek "phos" (genitive "photos"), meaning light, and it appears in many scientific coinages from the nineteenth century onward. The second part combines "catalysis", from Greek "katalysis" meaning a dissolving or loosening, with the verb-forming "-ize" type ending, here spelled "-yse" in British usage. "Catalysis" itself was introduced by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1835, so the root behind the whole word is a much younger coinage than its Greek parts suggest. The word is a modern technical formation, and its specific sense belongs to twentieth-century chemistry. Light-driven catalysis was studied in the early decades of the 1900s, and the term "photocatalysis" grew common as researchers examined how light could speed reactions on solid surfaces. Its most famous application came later, when titanium dioxide was shown to split water and break down pollutants under ultraviolet light, a discovery that made the process important for self-cleaning surfaces and water treatment.

Synonyms: photocatalyzing, photocatalysis