(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- The process of catalysis—in which a material speeds up a chemical reaction—is crucial to the production of many of the chemicals used in our everyday lives. But even though these catalytic processes are widespread, researchers often lack a clear understanding of exactly how they work.

A new analysis by researchers at MIT has shown that an important industrial synthesis process, the production of vinyl acetate, requires a catalyst to take two different forms that cycle back and forth from one to the other as the chemical process unfolds.

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