The rich-hydrogen generation from ethanol steam reforming over NiZr, which is used as an anode material in solid oxide fuel cells, -loaded MCM-48 (NiZr/MCM-48) catalyst was investigated in this study. We used an impregnation approach to synthesize an MCM-48 (70.0 wt-%) support loaded with bimetallic NiZr (30.0-wt%, Ni:Zr atomic ratio=4:6, 5:5, and 6:4), and the prepared catalysts were applied to the steam-reforming reactions of ethanol. These three bimetallic NiZr/MCM-48 catalysts exhibited significantly higher reforming reactivity than the mono-metal, Ni-loaded MCM-48 (Ni/MCM-48) catalyst. The hydrogen production was started from 350 degrees C over the three NiZr/MCM-48 catalysts, compared to above 550 degrees C over the Ni/MCM-48 catalyst. The catalytic performance was affected by the Zr content. The H-2 production and ethanol conversion were maximized at 85% and 95%, respectively, over Ni4Zr6/MCM-48 at 750 degrees C for 1 h at CH3CH2OH:H2O=1:1 and a gas hourly space velocity of 4000 h(-1). This high performance was maintained for up to 60 h. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.