Methanol reforming is considered as a promising candidate for hydrogen production because of its advantages in many ways. Conventional reformers of packed-bed catalyst suffer from severe limitations of mass and heat transfer. These disadvantages result in a low catalyst effectiveness factor in the conventional pellet catalyst. In this work, a plate-type reactor has been developed to investigate the influence of catalyst activity distribution on methanol steam reforming. Cold spot temperature differences are observed in the temperature profile along the reactor axis. It has been experimentally verified that reducing cold spot temperature differences contributes to the improvement of the catalytic hydrogen production. The minimal cold spot temperature difference is obtained on the optimal catalyst distribution. It is found that the optimal catalyst distribution shows superiority in the methanol conversion and H-2 production rate in comparison to that of the other ones. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.