In the work, hollow nanoporous Au/Pt core-shell (H-PtAu) catalysts with nanochannels were prepared with different sizes of gold nanoparticles of a narrow size distribution in the range of 1.8 +/- 0.3, 3.2 +/- 0.3 and 4.6 +/- 0.5 nm. The hollow spheres were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and an energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyzer. The electrochemical methods by cyclic voltammetric and chronoamperometry demonstrate that the catalytic performance of hollow nanoporous Au/Pt sphere electrocatalysts increases with the decrease of Au particles size in the samples. The nanoporous hollow structure of the electrocatalysts improves the efficiency for electro-oxidation of methanol and ethanol. More importantly, the nanoporous H-PtAu electrocatalysts have a higher catalytic activity and better steady-state performance for ethanol oxidation than methanol. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.