In this work, the low-temperature hydrogen production via glycerol steam reforming over activated carbon-supported Ni and Ni-Sn catalysts promoted by ceria was studied. A combination of N-2 adsorption, powder X-ray diffraction, temperature-programmed reduction with H-2, X-tay photoelectron spectroscopy and TEM analysis were used to characterise the Ni-Sn-CeO2 interactions and the CeO2 dispersion over the activated carbon-support. The catalytic activity results show that the presence of ceria enhances the water-gas shift reaction, thus promoting the selectivity towards hydrogen. The inclusion of Sn stresses the influence of ceria in the displayed performance. Moreover, the formation of a Ni-Sn alloy seems to be an efficient way to mitigate Ni sintering and therefore to improve the overall catalyst's stability. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.