Cu/ZnO microball catalysts were prepared by a two-step process, where ZnO nanorods supports were first grown hydrothermally followed by the impregnation of copper nanoparticles. Catalytic activities for methanol steam reforming by using Cu/ZnO microball were found to increase with higher copper content. Addition of urea during the metal impregnation process was found to enhance the methanol steam reforming catalytic activity attributed to the larger surface area of the catalyst. Activation energies of synthesized catalyst and CuZnAl commercial catalyst were calculated from the Arrhenius plots of the rate of reaction and were found to affect hydrogen yield. The lowest activation energy of 4.74 kJ mol(-1) was achieved for the optimized catalyst which was half of the activation energy of commercial catalysts. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.