Binary CoB and ternary CoFeB amorphous alloy catalysts with different Fe contents were prepared by the chemical reduction method. In liquid-phase hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde, incorporation of Fe into the CoB catalyst reduced the overall activity while effectively improving the selectivity and yield to crotyl alcohol. On the optimum CoFeB-3 catalyst with a nominal Fe/(Co + Fe) molar ratio of 0.6, the initial selectivity amounted to 71%, and the yield of crotyl alcohol reached 63%. It is found that the selectivity enhancement was due to the lower decrement in the intrinsic formation rate of crotyl alcohol compared with that of butanal, not to the increment in the activation of the C=O bond. Based on the characterizations, including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and previous findings, the enhanced selectivity from Fe modification was tentatively attributed to an ensemble size effect. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.