Methanol is one of the most important industrial base chemicals and also a starting material for many organic syntheses. A steadily rising amount is used as fuel or fuel additive because methanol can serve as liquid hydrogen carrier. In the chemical industry, methanol is produced from synthesis gas over Cu/ZnO based catalysts. The catalyst is prepared by a multi-step synthesis (co-precipitation, calcination, reduction). Already in early stages of the preparation structural characteristics can provide indications for the resulting activity of the final catalyst. In order to investigate...