I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "surface" catalysis?
I was trying to exclude, for example, the way that water is required to catalyze the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen in the presence of a spark, which makes more water but which we would wish to exclude from the definition of life. I forget what that's called, but it's called something else.
Is anyone round here a chemist?
I can see it excluding all males.
Why? I am male, and the chemicals of which I am constituted do indeed catalyze their own synthesis.