A highly active and stable boron-promoted catalyst was successfully prepared by using the sequential incipient wetness impregnation technique and examined for methane bi-reforming reaction. The initial investigation found that the NiO and B2O3 particles were dispersed on the outer surface of the high surface area SBA-15 support. In addition, the catalytic activity was increased linearly with the tested reaction temperature due to the endothermic nature of the reaction. In fact, the catalyst achieved the CH4 conversion and H-2/CO molar ratio of approximately 67.3% and 2.7, respectively at 1073 K. The resulting product ratio is highly suitable for downstream Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. The B-promoted catalyst showed the lowest degree of catalyst deactivation (4%) at 1023 K. Additionally, the XPS measurements unveiled that the boron facilitates the adsorption of CO2 by donating electrons to the neighbouring Ni cluster and thus improved its catalytic performance. Furthermore, Raman and XRD analysis revealed that the boron promotion on 10%Ni/SBA-15 could prevent the reoxidation and deposition of carbonaceous species. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.