A family of catalysts has been developed which appear to be clearly superior to those previously studied for the destruction of highly toxic or hazardous volatile halogenated compounds, including polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons and C1 and C2 chlorohydrocarbons and chlorofluorohydrocarbons. Applications for these catalysts include destruction of hazardous halohydrocarbons in vent gases in the chemical process industry, and the purification of the discharge air from groundwater and soil stripping operations. Results are shown comparing the performance of these catalysts with state of the art catalysts. These results show that the HDC can operate at lower temperature and/or residence times than the latter.