Uniform platinum nanoparticles with average diameter of about 3.0nm and good dispersion on carbon nanotubes were prepared by microwave heated polyol process and characterized by EDX, XRD, TEM and XPS. TEM observations showed that microwave synthesized Pt nanoparticles had a sharp size distribution and highly dispersed on the surface of carbon nanotubes. Cyclic voltammetry demonstrated that the microwave synthesized Pt/carbon nanotubes catalysts exhibited higher catalytic activity for methanol electrooxidation at room temperature than a commercial Pt/C catalyst. The significant improvement in electrocatalytic activity was due to that the microwave synthesized Pt nanoparticles was uniform in size and well dispersed on the surface of carbon nanotubes. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.