Partial dehydrogenation (PDh) of fuels is a novel method to generate high purity hydrogen on-board, in order to directly feed a fuel-cell based power unit. In this work, the PDh of diesel and gasoline has been studied in order to investigate the possibility of applying such a system to vehicles. The studies have been performed with a Pt-Sn/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst using a series of diesel and gasoline surrogates. The reactivity of the fuels has been studied, identifying different reaction mechanisms, in relation to the chemical composition and the process conditions. The PDh of a gasoline surrogate provides an average hydrogen production of 1800 NL h(-1) kg(cat)(-1) with a purity of over 99% vol. and an extrapolated catalyst lifetime of over 300 h. With diesel, PDh gave an average hydrogen production of 3500 NLh(-1) kg(cat)(-1), a purity of over 99% vol. and a lifetime of only 29 h. These preliminary results open up interesting perspectives for future applications of the partial dehydrogenation technology to feed on-board fuel-cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.