Hydrogen is renewable, ecofriendly, lightweight, high combustion efficiency and zero emission fuel. Dry reforming of methane is the growing technology for producing hydrogen. In this study, dry reforming of methane was conducted over Ni/Y2O3 catalyst calcined at different temperatures. The effect of activation temperature and time to get the optimized catalytic performance was investigated. A maximum hydrogen yield of (82.8%) was achieved at 800 degrees C calcination, 800 degrees C activation and reaction temperature at 700 degrees C. To suppress the extent of carbon deposition, the promoting effect of Gd was studied. It was observed that even a small amount of Gd promoter (1 wt%) could reduce the carbon formation mechanism significantly. CO2-TPD results showed that Gd-promoted catalysts have a very high basicity when compared to non-promoted Ni/Y2O3 catalyst. The formation of carbon nanotube over spent catalyst was observed in the HRTEM analysis. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.