Reticulated ceramic foams, prepared from steel making wastes using an earlier described multilayer replication method, have been used as support for preparing Au/Al2O3 and Au/CeO2 catalytic devices, by depositing a coating of Al2O3 or CeO2 and loading with gold by ion exchange. The obtained catalytic systems are active to the 2-propanol oxidation reaction, presenting the Au/CeO2-coated monolith the best catalytic results because of the combination of the oxidation capability of gold atoms with the redox properties of the ceria phase. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.