Synthetic natural gas (SNG) production from coal is reconsidered for the rising prices for natural gas and the hope for less dependency on natural gas import and reduction of greenhouse gas CO2 emission. In this paper, the effects of MoO3 loading amounts and calcination temperature on the catalytic performance of MoO3/CeO2 toward sulfur-resistant methanation were investigated. All the catalysts were prepared by incipient-wetness impregnation method and further characterized by N-2 adsorption-desorption, temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy (RS). The results show that CO conversion reached optimal value when loading 5 wt.% of MoO3 on the CeO2 support. Also, the "monolayer" saturated coverage of MoO3 over the prepared CeO2 support is about 5 wt.%. The MoO3/CeO2 catalyst with MoO3 loading amount of 5 wt.% and calcination temperature of 500 degrees C exhibits the highest activity for CO conversion. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.