I will present recent work using inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy on the methanol-to-hydrocarbons reaction using a ZSM-5 catalyst and the characterisation of the adsorption sites of hydrogen on supported platinum and unsupported platinum nanoparticles. For both of these, I will try and show what is required for a successful experiment including sample environment, type of spectrometer, computational studies and non-neutron characterisation facilities.