It's not a chemical catalyst, but the idea of muon-catalysed cold fusion has been around since the late 50s. I think I first read about it as a child in the appendix of Arthur C Clarke's "2061" novel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

Is that an open mind or parallel thinking? It's an interesting idea anyway, but seems no way to efficiently create enough muons / u- mesons.