Certain transition state metals like Pladium, Platinum, Nickel, and Iron serve as industrial catalysts that catalyze a wide variety of reactions such as Hydrogenation. Homogeneous catalysts are catalysts that exist in the same phase as the reactant molecules usually in a solution. Acids and Bases in solution serve as catalysts in a wide variety of Organic reactions. Most industrial catalysts are responsible for more than one catalysis among reactants and are considered relatively non-specific in what they catalyze. Enzymes are very different.
All current research suggests that enzymes are extremely specific in what a given enzyme catalyzes.
One enzyme molecule might be responsible for converting thousands of reactant molecules called substrate molecules into product. Return to the top of the page. The high specificity and efficiency of enzymes can be explained by the manner that they associate with the reactant molecules called the substrate. According to this model, each enzyme molecule may have as few as one active site on the surface of the enzyme molecule itself. This is called the enzyme-substrate complex.