It is now apparent that a potential role exists for Au catalysts in the field of chemical processing, in contrast to pollution abatement. This development is prompted by the observation that supported gold catalysts can be a catalyst of choice for some reactions. The recent literature concerning two of these reactions is briefly reviewed in this article, namely: (a) the hydrochlorination of ethyne to produce vinyl chloride; (b) the hydrogenation of a, P unsaturated aldehydes to produce the unsaturated alcohol. For the first of these examples, a correlation between the catalyst activity and the standard electrode potential was used as the basis for predicting that gold would be the best catalyst for this reaction.