Recently bamboo shaped carbon nanotubes (BCNTs) have received increased attention for its bamboo shaped structure associated properties and its application in direct methanol/ethanol fuel cell In this work the potential to use BCNTs as the support material of high loaded Pt nanoparticles for improving the efficiency of ethanol/methanol fuel cell is explored The structure and nature of the resulting Pt-BCNTS composite were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) spectrum it was found that Pt nanoparticles were homogeneously dispersed on the BCNTs surfaces with 23 5% by weight Cyclic voltammogram (CV) indicated that the Pt-BCNTs catalyst displayed excellent electrocatalytic activity and long-term stability toward ethanol oxidation The excellent performance may be attributed to the high dispersion of nanoscale Pt catalysts and the unique nature of BCNTs The results imply that doping N atom introduces some defective sites and active sites onto the surface of CNTs In general this paper demonstrates that BCNTs are promising support material for Pt-nanoparticles catalyst and can be used to enhance the efficiency of fuel cell (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved