A series of CuO/ZnO/Al

2

O

3

CuO/ZnO/ZrO

2

/Al

2

O

3

and CuO/ZnO/CeO

2

/Al

2

O

3

catalysts were prepared by coprecipitation and characterized by N

2

adsorption

XRD

TPR

N

2

O titration and HRTEM. The catalytic performances of these catalysts for the steam reforming of methanol were evaluated in a laboratory-scale fixed-bed reactor at 0.1 MPa and temperatures between 473 and 543 K. The results showed that the catalytic activity depended greatly on the catalyst reducibility and the specific surface area of Cu. An approximate linear correlation between the catalytic activity and the Cu surface area was found for all catalysts investigated in this study. Compared to CuO/ZnO/Al

2

O

3

the ZrO

2

-doped CuO/ZnO/Al

2

O

3

exhibited higher activity and selectivity to CO

while the CeO

2

-doped catalyst displayed lower activity and selectivity. Finally

an intrinsic

kinetic study was carried out over a screened CuO/ZnO/CeO

2

/Al

2

O

3

catalyst in the absence of internal and external mass transfer effects. A good agreement was observed between the model-derived effluent concentrations of CO (CO

2

) and the experimental data. The activation energies for the reactions of methanol-steam reforming

water-gas shift and methanol decomposition over CuO/ZnO/CeO

2

/Al

2

O

3

were 93.1

85.1 and 116.5 kJ·mol

-1

respectively.