Emission control of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is one of the priorities for environmental catalysis. Catalytic combustion is one of promising technologies for elimination of VOCs. A novel platinum-structured catalyst was designed and is presented in this work. Aluminum was used as support for the catalyst after anodic oxidation treatment and in a shifted arrangement bent, short channels are applied in the design of the structured catalyst. The simulation results show that the novel design of the structured catalyst brings in the higher catalytic activity, compared with the traditional structured catalyst which has long, straight channels. Lastly, the novel structured catalyst was manufactured and its catalytic activity was evaluated with the catalytic combustion of VOC. The results show that the conversion obtained from the reactor with the structured catalyst is almost identical to that obtained from the tube reactor packed with the plate catalyst in which the reaction rate is controlled by surface reactions. Hence, it can be concluded that the mass transfer can be improved by the novel design of the structured catalyst and that the mass transfer in gas phase is not the rate-determining step for the catalytic combustion of VOC. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.