Solar reforming of natural gas has been considered as the promising conversion route of solar fuels with the concentrated solar heat. The present work focuses on investigating the catalytic reforming reaction over metal foam based monolithic catalysts. The 2 wt.% Ru/Al2O3/AISI 316 foam and 5 wt.%Ni/Al2O3/AISI 316 foam were prepared via the process of coating and impregnation. The catalytic properties of 5 wt.%Ni/Al2O3/AISI 316 foam and 2 wt.%Ru/Al2O3/AISI 316 foam for the methane reforming with carbon dioxide were tested in a continuous-flow fixed-bed reaction system. The results showed that the 2 wt.%Ru/Al2O3/AISI 316 foam exhibited higher catalytic activity and long-term stability for CO2 reforming of methane. The 316 stainless steel metal foam matrix had the very low catalytic performance for methane reforming with CO2 and the Al2O3 coating played a key role on the reactivity of the resulting catalysts. Copyright (C) 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.