The elimination of acetaldehyde from H-2 streams was studied employing the TPSR of acetaldehyde decomposition, thermodesorption of acetaldehyde followed by FTIR and catalytic tests employing Ni/ZrO2 catalyst and also Ni/SiO2 catalyst, being the latter a reference. The results show that Ni/ZrO2 is a very promising catalytic system for the CO and acetaldehyde simultaneous elimination from H-2 rich streams. Indeed, the outstanding performance of Ni/ZrO2 when compared with Ni/SiO2 might be related to two factors: its high activity toward acetaldehyde and CO elimination and its large number of active sites located on the metal and mainly on the support. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.