The objective of this paper is to study hydrogen-assisted catalytic combustion of hydrocarbon on a microscale experimentally. In the experiment, neither methane nor ethane can be ignited by itself, but hydrogen can be ignited and burn steadily in this tube. It is found that there is no significant difference between hydrogen added to the hydrocarbon and hydrogen alone as fuel without the platinum thermocouple, but the temperature will increase and the efficiency of methane combustion will increase considerably when the platinum thermocouple was put into the microtube. Methane can burn steadily without adding hydrogen after ignited by hydrogen. It can be concluded that the addition of hydrogen to hydrocarbon is favorable to ignition and the platinum thermocouple catalyzes the hydrocarbon combustion. The experiment result showed that the added hydrogen acts as an assistant for ignition and expands the range for methane steady burn. After igniting, methane can burn steadily alone at catalytic condition. This is useful for optimization microcombustion fuel. (c) 2006 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.