Liquid feed direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) are promising candidates for portable power applications. However, owing to the problems associated with expensive Pt-based catalysts, viz., CO poisoning, a promising approach is to use complex oxides of the type ABO(3) (A = Sr, Ce, La, etc. and B = Co, Fe, Ni, Pt, Ru, etc.). In the current work, a variety of ABO(3) and A(2)BO(4) type non-noble and partially substituted noble metal high surface area compounds were synthesized by an effective and rapid aqueous combustion synthesis (CS). Their catalytic activity was evaluated by using "High Throughput Screening Unit"-NuVant System, which compares up to 25 compositions simultaneously under DMFC! conditions. It was found that the Sr-based perovskites showed performance comparable with the standard Pt-Ru catalyst. Further, it was observed that the method of doping SrRuO3 with Pt influenced the activity. Specifically, platinum added during aqueous CS yielded better catalyst than when added externally at the ink preparation stage. Finally, it was also demonstrated that the presence of SrRuO3 significantly enhanced the catalytic properties of Pt, leading to superior performance even at lower noble metal loadings. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.