Methanol oxidation reforming is an important reaction in the process of hydrogen generation for PEMFC. In this paper, we report the wall coated catalysts in a microchannel reactor for methanol oxidation reforming. The preparation method of the wall coating catalyst was studied in detail, i.e., the sol-get and solution-coating techniques. To prepare the catalysts for methanol oxidation reforming, the washing-coating layer of CuZnAl was prepared by the sol-gel technique, and then the active layer was coated on it by solution-coating technique with emulsion colloid containing Pd-ZnO particles. Both the supporting layer and catalyst on the stainless steel foils were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The formed wash-coating layer with ordered arrays of petaloid microcrystallites in layer surface and Pd-Zn alloy crystal phase can be clearly observed. The reaction experimental results indicated that the catalyst prepared have high activity and relatively high stability. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.