Hydrogen peroxide foams on an open wound but keeps well in its bottle. Without catalysts, how long can complete decomposition take?

1. Substances in exposed tissue act as catalysts, so the peroxide fizzes at once on a wound. 2. In the sealed bottle those catalysts are absent. 3. Complete decomposition then takes months. 4. The contrast between seconds on a wound and months in a bottle shows how large a catalyst effect can be. 5. A few seconds describes the catalysed case, not the uncatalysed one. _Source: OpenStax Chemistry (CC BY 4.0), Ch 12 "Kinetics", section 12.2 Factors Affecting Reaction Rates_