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Recently, the research teams led by researchers Sun Jian and Ge Qingjie from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the \"Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics\") have made significant progress in the production of low-carbon olefins from syngas. The team proposed a new catalytic strategy based on the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis system, enabling the efficient conversion of syngas into low-carbon olefins under mild conditions (250–260 °C, 0.1 MPa). The relevant findings were published in Nature on April 1, Beijing time. The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is an important industrial process for producing fuels and chemicals using syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) as raw materials; it holds significant practical value in regions where coal resources are abundant while petroleum resources are relatively scarce. China’s energy structure is characterized by an abundance of coal, a shortage of oil, and limited natural gas reserves. Developing conversion technologies that use syngas as an intermediate is of great significance for ensuring energy security and promoting diversification of chemical raw materials. The traditional F-T synthesis process for producing olefins typically operates at temperatures above 300 °C and pressures greater than 2 MPa, resulting in relatively high energy consumption and costs. Moreover, under milder conditions, there is generally a trade-off between conversion rate and the selectivity for low-carbon olefins: as the conversion rate increases, the selectivity for low-carbon olefins tends to decrease significantly, making it challenging to achieve high selectivity for such olefins at high conversion rates (>60%). To address the aforementioned issues, this study started from the intrinsic reaction mechanism and found that the introduction of specific hydrophilic hydroxyl additives can have a positive effect on carbon monoxide activation, providing a new perspective for understanding and controlling syngas conversion reactions. Studies have found that the introduction of specific hydroxyl additives into the sodium-cobalt-manganese catalytic system enables the creation of a reaction interface rich in surface hydroxyl groups, thereby inducing the formation of new catalytic sites in cobalt-manganese composite oxides with a trigonal phase structure of low symmetry, which improves the activation efficiency of carbon monoxide. Under mild conditions of 250–260 ℃ and 0.1 MPa, this catalytic system achieves a carbon monoxide conversion rate of up to 80% over a wide range of hydrogen-to-carbon ratios, a selectivity for lower alkenes of 60%, and an overall alkene selectivity exceeding 80%. Structural characterization and mechanism studies indicate that hydroxyl additives can suppress the excessive reduction and carbonization of the catalyst, stabilize the active oxide phase, and optimize the synergistic relationship between carbon monoxide activation and carbon-carbon coupling at the source. This provides new experimental evidence for understanding the dynamic evolution of multiphase active structures during the catalytic conversion of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide. In the future, the team will continue to advance relevant basic research and application exploration by focusing on key issues such as the design of carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide catalytic conversion systems regulated by hydroxyl additives, the structural evolution of active sites, and the optimization of reaction processes. This will provide valuable technical support for the clean and efficient utilization of coal in China as well as the development of low-carbon chemical processes.