During prolonged electrolyses, the effects of the nature of the electrolyte, of the upd-lead adatoms and of the oxidation potential on the kinetics and the selectivity of the electrocatalytic oxidation of butanediols on platinum are investigated. It is particularly shown that the sulphate anions play an important role in the reaction rates and the selectivity. The reactions, under determined experimental conditions,were found to be very selective towards the first step oxidation products (aldehydes and ketones).