Influence of the cobalt particle size in the CO hydrogenation reaction studied by in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy.

The influence of particle size in the carbon monoxide hydrogenation reaction has been studied using cobalt nanoparticles (NPs) with narrow size distribution prepared from colloidal chemistry. The surfactant covering the NPs after synthesis could be removed by heating to 200-270 degrees C in H(2). Soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy was performed using a gas flow cell under reaction conditions of H(2) and CO at atmospheric pressure.