Bimetallic Ni-Pt catalysts supported on carbon were found to give very high turn over frequency numbers and almost complete selectivity to m-phenylenediamine in m-dinitrobenzene hydrogenation as compared to the monometallic nickel catalysts. The XRD and XPS characterization revealed that most of the nickel remains as Ni2+ in a monometallic catalyst while, the addition of platinum leads to the stabilization of Ni-0 state, in case of bimetallic catalysts. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.