The reaction network of high alcohol synthesis over a CuFe/ZrO 2 modified FT catalyst was investigated by probe molecule technique, and the influence of various probe molecules (alkane, alcohol, aldehyde and olefin) on catalytic performance was evaluated in detail. Alcohol selectivity and CO conversion remain almost constant when alkane was used as the probe molecule. However, the products shift to higher carbon number significantly due to the alleviation of the retention of heavy products by the extraction of 10 the added alkane. When alcohol was introduced into the reaction system, a considerable amount of esters with unique structures were formed with the formula of RCO 2 R', where R' is the alkyl group from the added alcohols, and such esters followed ASF distribution with similar chain propagation factor as that of the corresponding higher alcohols. With the addition of aldehyde as probe molecule, most of the added aldehyde was directly hydrogenated to the corresponding alcohol, but a considerable amount of esters 15 were also detected in the reaction products, which could be attributed to the reaction between the surface acyls adsorbed from introduced aldehydes molecules and the alcohols synthesized by syngas. The added 1-olefins were directly hydrogenated to the corresponding paraffins, incorporated into growing carbon chain to form higher products or transformed into alcohol with one more carbon number by CO insertion reaction. Based on these results, the catalytic mechanism and reaction network of higher alcohol synthesis 20 over modified FT catalyst were discussed.