Oxidation of 20 hydrocarbons (from C10 to C42) representative of soluble organic fraction of Diesel soots were investigated by mixing the hydrocarbon (solid at ambient temperature) with a 0.55 wt%Pt/Al2O3 catalyst (Pt particle size below 1.2 nm). Oxidation rates were characterized by the temperature of half-conversion (T-50) and by the quantity of oxygen consumed during the reaction, which allows to determine the amount of the solid hydrocarbon (initially 100 mg of a mixture of 0.133 mmol HC with 2 g of catalyst) actually oxidized during heating in 1%O-2/He. A preliminary study carried out with two selected hydrocarbons showed that turnover frequencies (TOF) are little dependent on the Pt loading. The hydrocarbons should be vaporized before them to react with the Pt catalyst. Ideally, temperatures of light-off and of vaporization should coincide for the optimal transformation into CO2. The molecular structure of the hydrocarbon (number of aromatic rings, MC ratio, condensed structures, etc.) is a key-parameter for both oxidation and volatility, which explains why a good correlation was observed between T-50 and boiling temperatures T-b. A comparison with light-off tests performed in a stream of gaseous hydrocarbon (vaporized upstream the catalyst) showed that oxidation rates depend on the same structural parameters, except when the hydrocarbon is too volatile (i.e. naphthalene) or, on the contrary, not sufficiently volatile (i.e. n-alkanes in C20-C34). In the first case, a large HC fraction is desorbed without being oxidized while in the second case, oxidation rate is limited by the vaporization. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.