The critical problem facing catalysts for the steam reforming of ethanol (SRE) is deactivation due to carbon deposition and/or sintering of the active components. To overcome this problem, a new scheme for designing and preparing Ni-Co alloy catalysts for SRE has been developed in this study using a perovskitetype oxide of LaNi1-xCoxO3 as the precursor. According to the scheme, a series of zirconia-supported LaNi1-xCoxO3 catalysts were prepared by impregnating ZrO2 with a mixed solution composed of ions consisting of nickel, cobalt, lanthanum and citric acid. After reduction, the Ni-Co alloy nanoparticles were highly dispersed on ZrO2 and modified with La2O3. The bimetallic catalyst exhibited very good catalytic performance for SRE, including high activity, high selectivity to hydrogen and very good stability due to the synergistic catalysis of cobalt and nickel. The synergy between cobalt and nickel led to a higher anti-coking ability compared to the corresponding monometal catalysts, and the bimetallic catalyst exhibited very good anti-sintering ability. This preparation scheme could be extended to the preparation of many other supported bimetallic catalysts because many transitional metal ions can act as the ions of a perovskite-type oxide. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.