Abstract
Light olefins—ethylene, propylene and butylene (C2=–C4=)—are essential building blocks in the chemicals industry and are traditionally produced by thermal or catalytic cracking of hydrocarbon feedstocks. Directly converting syngas (CO and H2) into light olefins under mild conditions is attractive but challenging1,2,3,4. Prismatic cobalt carbide (Co2C) and associated hydrophobic modifications have shown potential for selective light-olefin synthesis under mild conditions5,6. Here we show another hydrophilic-promotion strategy in which a set of hydroxy promoters, exemplified by hydroxyapatite (Ca5(PO4)3(OH), HAP), fumed silica (SiO2(F)) and amorphous boehmite (AlO(OH), AB), is physically mixed with a Co2MnO4 precursor, inducing synergistic cobalt–manganese (Co–Mn) oxides and Co2C for syngas conversion. The induced anorthic Co–Mn oxides may serve as active phase for adsorbed-hydrogen-assisted CO dissociation to CHx/CHxO intermediates, whereas induced Co2C or the Co2C–oxide interface may mediate C–C coupling of these intermediates to form light olefins. This design achieved 70–82% CO conversion with light-olefins selectivity of more than 60% at 250–260 °C, 0.1 MPa with H2/CO ratios of 1–2, giving light-olefins carbon utilization efficiency up to 13%, among the highest reported for syngas to light olefins. This simple hydrophilic strategy for facilitating CO activation may provide useful insights for improving industrial Fischer–Tropsch processes.
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Data availability
All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information, Source Data files and Supplementary Data files or from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Source data for Fig. 1 are provided in Supplementary Tables 1, 2 and 4. Source data underlying Figs. 2–4 are provided in the accompanying Source Data files. The Supplementary Data include detailed structural information from XRD and ND refinements, as well as the optimized xyz coordinates and corresponding total energies from the DFT calculations, provided as a ZIP file. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1604101), National Natural Science Foundation of China (22525808, 22378386, 22372165) and Liaoning Binhai Laboratory (LBLA-2024-01). We thank C. Wang, W. Yu, C. Meng, J. Ma and Y. Liu from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for assistance with in situ XRD, quasi in situ XPS and in situ TEM characterizations. We thank J. Xiao from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for assistance in designing the DFT calculations. We thank Q. Xie at Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Dalian University of Technology for her assistance in discussing product analysis. We thank the staff members of the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL, Hefei, China) of BL04B (31131.02.HLS.MS) for assistance with the in situ SVUV-PIMS experiments. We thank the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility of BL14W1 (https://cstr.cn/31124.02.SSRF.BL14W1) for the assistance with XAFS experiments. We thank the staff members of the Multi-Physics Instrument (https://cstr.cn/31113.02.CSNS.MPI) at the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) (https://cstr.cn/31113.02.CSNS) for providing technical support and assistance in data collection and analysis. We thank H. Wang from Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences for providing the reference XAS data.
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J.S. and Q.G. supervised the overall project and oversaw all discussions. Y.H., J.S. and Q.G. designed the study and wrote the manuscript. Y.H., J.H. and C.F. prepared catalysts and performed catalytic tests. Y.H. and Y.S. carried out chemisorption, elemental analysis and hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity tests and DRIFTS measurements. W.Y., H.C. and Y.H. performed the ND experiments and analysed the data. Y.H., J.Y., J.W. and L.T. performed in situ XRD, in situ TEM, ex situ XAS, (quasi in situ/ex situ) XPS and analysed the data. Y.H. and J.S. designed the computational protocol, defined the models and integrated the computational results with experimental data. N.W. performed the DFT calculations and energy barrier evaluations, contributing to the technical analysis of the results. All authors contributed to the discussion and revision of the paper.
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Han, Y., Yu, J., Wei, J. et al. Hydroxy-induced cobalt oxides for syngas to light olefins. Nature 652, 89–95 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10204-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10204-4
