Low temperature (308K) hydrogenation of acetone was used as a probe reaction to investigate the support effect on the hydrogenation activity of Pt/Ni bimetallic catalysts supported on TiO2, SiO2 and gamma-Al2O3. The oxide supports significantly affected the catalytic properties of Pt/Ni catalysts, in which Pt/Ni/SiO2 bimetallic catalysts exhibited significantly higher activity than the other two bimetallic catalysts. TEM measurements revealed that the three supported Pt/Ni bimetallic catalysts have similar particle size distribution, while CO chemisorption measurements showed very different chemisorption capacity. Extended X-Ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements of the Pt L-III-edge indicated that Pt atoms were fully reduced and the Pt-Ni bimetallic bonds were formed on all three catalysts. The extent of Pt-Ni bond formation followed the trend of SiO2 > gamma-Al2O3 > TiO2, which correlated very well with the hydrogenation activity. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.