This work reports some advances in the development of catalysts for ethanol electro-oxidation. A sol-gel-based method was used to incorporate different metal oxides on a substrate composed of platinum dispersed on carbon (Pt/C), resulting in very active catalysts with high surface area. Ruthenium and iridium. oxides were used as modifiers, either alone or combined, maintaining a proportion of 25% in their total mass, as related to the amount of platinum on the substrate. The catalyst behavior was evaluated by polarization curves and the results were compared with commercially available catalysts. The experimental data reveals a superior performance of the sol-gel-based materials, indicating that the proposed method is a promising alternative to prepare catalysts to be used in the direct electrochemical oxidation of ethanol. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.