Cracking of a mixture of petroleum asphaltene and 10 wt% Fe catalyst supported on mesoporous molecular sieve (SBA-15) possessing a hexagonal array of uniform mesopores has been studied with a fixed bed reactor at 573 K under atmospheric He. When average pore diameter of Fe/SBA-15 is varied between 4.5 and 15 nm, asphaltene conversion increases almost linearly with increasing pore diameter up to 12 nm and reaches 65%, though the increment is small beyond this value. On the other hand, yield of maltene formed is almost independent of the diameter and less than 15% but greatly improved by using pressurized H-2 in place of He. Although pore volumes of all Fe/SBA-15 catalysts decrease by mixing with feed asphaltene, the extent of the decrease is larger for the catalyst with a larger pore diameter, which shows that higher asphaltene conversion may arise from the presence of larger amounts of asphaltene molecules held inside the larger mesopores. The N-2 adsorption measurements reveal that pore structures of Fe/SBA-15 catalysts are almost unchanged after cracking and subsequent recalcination to remove deposited coke. The X-ray diffraction analysis and temperature programmed oxidation after cracking suggest that Fe species are highly dispersed inside the mesopores and present as the sulfided phases at the outermost layer. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.