Not quite true, Platinum is inert in the sense that it is not consumed however it is one of the best catalyst material availible for most oxidation applications. The catalytic converters in cars use Pt for oxidation of CO and NOx mostly. The same goes for gold, it is a good oxidation catalyst, but worse than Pt.

However as said before Pt is the active site which helps the reaction by lowering the energy of the activated complex.

As someone mentioned before Methanol is not the catalyst it is the reactant. Catalyst is not consumed in reactions however depending on the recation pressure/temperature and how the catalyst is prepared, some catalyst might be effected and loose its surafce area thus the activity and efficiency and even some Pt might be get loose fromthe support and seems like it is consumed. Which is not wanted because Pt is expensive.

I do work with Pt daily basis and prepare Pt based catalyst for various reactions. It is a great material and expensive than gold and has limited availibilty and most of the Pt used in catalytic reformers are recylced.

Here is the one of the most common reaction mechanisms for methanol oxidation on Pt

Pt + CH3OHPt ---> CO +4H+ +4e-
Pt+H2OPt --- Pt-OH +H+ +e-
Pt-CO +Pt-OH ---> 2Pt + CO2 + H+ +e-

As you can see Pt is not consumed.

It is 11 pm before thanksgiving and I am in the lab running some experiments(Pt catalyst), being a PhD candidate in Chem. Eng. is not fun without RCU.

Maybe I can submit my next paper in RCU for methanol oxidation.

Altough I am no expert of glow plugs, and doubt that Pt is used in glow plugs for price and for combustion basicly you don't need it as gus described, however I am intreseted in finding out maybe can test one glow plug for Pt content.

Here is my question,

Who said that glow plugs has Pt?

I looked arround and couldn't find anything sugessting that the glow plug has Pt.