Products of ethanol oxidation on Pt/C nanoparticles in low temperature, polymer electrolyte membrane direct ethanol fuel cell are determined qualitatively and quantitatively in broad range of cell voltages and temperatures. Despite the fact that platinum is one of the most popular anode systems studied, comparable literature data are severely limited due to the broad unawareness of the oxygen permeation process occurring in fuel cells. Correction for oxygen crossover from cathode compartment allowed us also to correlate our results to general mechanism of ethanol electrooxidation, determined based on ex situ spectroscopic analysis, as available in literature. We also determined that for certain conditions on platinum anode, in low temperature polymer-electrolyte membrane direct ethanol fuel cell, ethanol is oxidized to carbon dioxide with very high (ca. 82%) selectivity. Conditions required for obtaining the reported selectivity are presented and discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.