To facilitate the drive towards ever lower energy, ‘greener’ processing, robust bimetallic aluminosilicate-supported Pt–Ru catalysts that can operate under atmospheric conditions have been developed for the rapid room temperature hydrogenation of aromatics (toluene and tetralin) at 1 atm H2. The toluene/methylcyclohexane couple has the added interest of being a promising cyclic hydrocarbon combination for the storage of hydrogen.The easily handled air-stable catalysts were prepared using the incipient wetness method and characterised by ICP-AES, XRD, TEM as well as nitrogen sorption measurements. Compared to their monometallic counterparts, the bimetallic catalysts displayed significantly higher turn-over-frequencies (TOFs), consistent with a synergistic relationship between platinum and ruthenium.