The performance of 0.5% Ru/Al 2 O 3 for the deep oxidation of trichloroethene (1000–2500ppmV, WHSV=55h −1 ) in air was studied in this work. Experiments were carried out both at dry and wet (20,000ppmV of H 2 O) conditions. Catalytic performance was studied in terms of activity and selectivity for the different reaction products (CO 2 , HCl, Cl 2 , C 2 Cl 4 , CCl 4 and CHCl 3 ). Both the activity and the selectivity for total combustion are higher than other catalysts suggested in the literature for this process (especially Pd and Pt).The main organic by-products are CCl 4 and CHCl 3 , whereas in all the other catalysts tested in the literature, tetrachloroethene is the main organic by-product. This fact suggests that the mechanism of the combustion reaction, involving a double-bond scission, is essentially specific for this catalyst.Kinetic data was fit to a pseudo-first order kinetic expression, providing fairly good fit.