Over the last 4-5 years the research team have been developing INS methodology that can be applied to investigate Fe Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalysts. The first stage of that challenging workplan is now complete, with three papers targeted for publication within the next 12 months. Those Fe catalysts were prepared at the academic centre.We have now moved on to examine Fe F-T catalysts prepared at the laboratories of a major operator of F-T technology. Problems originally encountered with these new and highly active catalysts have now been overcome and we are now well placed to be able to use INS to characterise hydrocarbonaceous overlayers present on these important heterogeneous catalysts.This particular application seeks to obtain the vibrational fingerprint of two forms of these high specification catalysts and to correlate those observations with catalyst performance.