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This chapter reviews that the understanding of the fundamental processes taking place on the metal surfaces during the fischer-tropsch (FT) synthesis leads to improved catalyst design and improved macroscopic description of the FT process. Reaction parameters are selected to optimize product formation. Knowing the possible surface species on the catalyst surface during the FT synthesis and their reactivity, enables the formulation of reaction pathways. This insight leads to mechanistic descriptions for the rate of product formation in the FT synthesis. The chapter also focuses on the concept of the FT synthesis. It is a polymerization reaction, in which the monomers are being produced in situ from the gaseous reactants hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Thus, all the reaction pathways proposed in literature have three different reaction sections: generation of the chain initiator, chain growth or …