Dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene in CO2 was investigated over CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts at 700 ℃ in a conventional flow reactor operating at atmospheric pressure. XRD, BET and microcalorimetric adsorption techniques were used to characterize the structure and surface acidity/basicity of the CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts. The results show that the surface acidity decreased while the surface basicity increased after the addition of CeO2 to γ-Al2O3. Accordingly, the activity of the hydrogenation reaction of CO2 increased, which might be responsible for the enhanced conversion in the dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene. The highest ethane conversion obtained was about 15% for the 25%CeO2/γ-Al2O3. The selectivity to ethylene was high for all the CeO2, γ-Al2O3 and CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts.