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Conventional Fischer–Tropsch (FT) experimentswere performedin both a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and a plug-flowreactor (PFR) on a TiO2-supported cobalt catalyst. Theolefin/paraffin ratios for short-chain hydrocarbons (C2–C5) were found to change when the reaction conditionswere kept constant in a CSTR, while the ratio of adjacent olefins(for example, C4H8/C3H6) remained unchanged. In the experiments with a fixed-bed reactor,the temperature was varied from 210–250 °C and differentflow rates ranging from 1.8–5.4 NL h–1g-cat–1. The ratio of adjacent olefins was found to be constantunder these conditions as well. After proposing a thermodynamic modelfor olefin product distribution, we compared the results that themodel predicted with those obtained in the experiments, and foundthat there is good agreement between the thermodynamic predictionsand the measured distributions. This supports the postulation thatthe olefin distribution in the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS)reaction might be determined by thermodynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]