By in situ ir spectroscopic techniques it was found that the cobalt carbonyl catalyst in hexane, after preforming at conditions of hydroformylation (temperatures of 101 and 124OC, Pc0 = 11 and 30 bars, PH2 = 20 and 49 bars, cobalt concentration = 2.0 and 4.2 mmolll.) consisted of more than 80% HCO(CO)~, the rest being C02(C0)8. Injection of octene-I, in order to start the hydroformylation, caused HCO(CO)~ to decrease (although not to zero concentration) in favor of an increasing CO~(CO)~ concentration. This reverted as the conversion of octene-1 increased. As intermediate complexes, only acyl cobalt carbonyl species were detected in very low concentrations. A catalyst composed of cobalt carbonyl and tributylphosphine in a phosphorus-to-cobalt ratio of 5, of a considerable amount of catalytically inactive CO~(CO),PBU~, while of all hydridocobalt carbonyls present only a minor part was liganded by PBu3 at the previously mentioned reaction conditions. Accordingly, in the hydroformylation of octene-I, the catalyst decreased only the octene conversion rate and left the yield of unbranched products unaffected.