The study focuses on the hydrogenation of carbon monoxide over Co-Fe-based catalysts. The catalytic reactions were performed under both isothermal and mechanical activation conditions and their rates estimated by monitoring the gradual consumption of carbon monoxide. Aimed at carrying out a sound comparison, the rate of mechanically activated processes was referred to individual collisions by normalizing its value to the amount of powder involved in individual collisions and to the time interval of ongoing deformation. This allowed to point out that the amount of carbon monoxide converted per unit of catalyst mass and unit of time under mechanical activation conditions is at least four orders of magnitude larger than the one reacted under thermal activation conditions. This result is tentatively connected with the generation of local excited states at the catalyst surface. (C) 2010 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.