The $9-billion/year worldwide merchant catalyst business, spanning chemical processing environmental, polymerization, refining, and should grow 3%-3.5%/year, to about $11.5 billion by 2005, says Clyde Pa yr president and CEO of The Catalyst Group (Spring House, PA). But the picture differs greatly for individual sectors: polymer and emission control catalysts are facing a decline in demand; refinery catalysts are stable, and several sectors are growing more quickly, particularly metallocene polyolefin catalysts and chiral catalysts for drug production: The intensifying U.S. economic slowdown is bound to worsen the erosion in polymer and environmental demand that already bad placed catalyst demand in those sectors as much as 20% behind year-ago levels, says Payn. Emission control catalysts have been hurt by lower car sales, as well as reduced corporate investment in plants and equipment, be says. Moreover, economic concerns and wartime distractions make. it even less likely that the Bush Administration will push or enact tougher environmental regulations requiring new catalysts, he adds (story, below). But producers say they can still boost sales and profits by creating catalysts that offer customers greater efficiency, even in the sluggish industrial marketplace. The surging growth of chiral chemistry which now figures in the manufacture of 45% of all drugs, is stimulating catalyst R&D as well as sales, says Payn (story, p. 31).