The screening of the catalyst composition showed that MnCo2O4 was superior to all other catalysts both in terms of yield and selectivity. Assuming that the migration of metal cations during the calcination step is fast enough and that the synthesised catalysts have a distribution of cations close to the thermodynamic one, some observations can be made. The improved performance of MnCo2O4 might be attributed to its inverse spinel structure, in contrast to Co3O4, which has a normal spinel structure. In this view, Mn could have the effect of boosting the activity by pushing half of the Co 3+ cations from octahedral to tetrahedral sites, positively influencing the Co 3+ ensembles that have been previously proposed as active sites. However, NiCo2O4, which is poorly active and selective, has an inverse spinel structure, too.