A series of nine catalysts containing Ce/Fe and Mo/Fe at various loadings on MgO supports have been studied as catalysts for chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) using a methane carbon source. Our results show that the Ce/Fe system is very suitable as a catalyst that favours SWCNT growth, and we question the special importance that has been attributed to Mo as an additive to Fe-based catalysts for SWCNT growth, as it appears that Ce is equally effective. Our results indicate that dehydroaromatization (DHA) is not a defining step for the growth mechanism, as has been suggested for Mo/Fe systems previously, and show that Ce and Mo do not seriously perturb the well-known Fe/MgO system for growth of high quality SWCNT. Using Raman spectroscopy, we have shown that the Ce/Fe/MgO catalyst system favours growth of SWCNTs with a different distribution of chiralities compared to the analogous Mo/Fe/MgO system. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.