The effects of reduction procedure, reaction temperature and composition of feed gas on the activity of a CuO-ZnO-Al2O3 catalyst for liquid phase methanol synthesis were studied. An optimized procedure different from conventional ones was developed to obtain higher activity and better stability of the catalyst. Both CO and CO2 in the feed gas were found to be necessary to maintain the activity of catalyst in the synthesis process.Reaction temperature was limited up to 523 K, otherwise the catalyst will be deactivated rapidly. Experimental results show that the catalyst deactivation is caused by sintering and fouling, and the effects of CO and CO2 on the catalyst activity are also investigated. The experimental results indicate that the formation of water in the methanol synthesis is negligible when the feed gas contains both CO and CO2. The mechanism for liquid-phase methanol synthesis was discussed and it differed slightly from that for gas-phase synthesis.