Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Steps into the Solar Era: Lower Olefins from Syngas

In this issue of Chem, Ma, Wen, and co-workers have demonstrated a photo driven Fischer-Tropsch to olefins (FTO) process over an oxygen-decorated Fe5C2 catalyst and achieved a very high olefin/paraffin ratio of 10.9 with high CO conversion. Such high selectivity toward lower olefins originates from the spontaneous oxygen decoration on the Fe5C2 surface under photo-irradiation.