High levels of CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere cause global warming and an associated increase in Earth’s temperature. To meet the target set by the United Nations for 2050, a new strategy must be found to reduce and reuse thisCO₂¹. One promising strategy is CO₂ hydrogenation to methane using renewable hydrogen. This reaction is generally carried out with Ni/Al₂O₃ due to its low cost compared to noble metals and its natural abundance, but it has shown low catalytic performances at low temperatures and deactivation due to carbon deposition and particle sintering^2,3. A possible strategy to reduce these problems is the addition of lanthanides as promoters⁴. In fact, it is well known that lanthanum is a thermal stabilizer used for alumina support, and tailors acido-base properties as well. For these reasons, the aim of this work is to study the effect of preparation techniques and the lanthanide loading of Ni-based catalyst for CO₂ hydrogenation. Catalysts were prepared by co- or sequential incipient wetness impregnation, maintaining the Ni loading constant and varying the lanthanide one. Fresh and spent catalysts were characterized by BET, XRD, FE-SEM, IR, and UV-vis-NIR. The catalytic tests were carried out at atmospheric pressure and temperature range of 523-773 K in both ascending and descending mode to evaluate possible catalyst deactivation in line with our previous work [2,3]. In addition, kinetic, surface, and on-demand studies were performed on the most promising catalysts. The main finding of this work is related to the effect of catalyst preparation that strongly influences the obtained performances. All tested catalysts displayed remarkable activity in the CO₂ hydrogenation reaction, achieving high CO₂ conversion with high methane selectivity at low temperatures and approaching thermodynamic equilibrium at temperatures above 673 K. The best methane yield (92% at 623 K) was achieved in Ce-containing materials.