Stainless steels slags are mainly composed of low specific surface area calcium silicates together with a variable amount of metallic cations dispersed in such silicate matrix. These silicates due to their heavy metals content have to be considered as hazardous wastes that cannot be reclaimed easily. An alternative to reclamation is the production of valuable materials designed to accomplish processes without economic profit as the abatement of VOCs. In this paper we describe a method for obtaining high specific surface area (up to 290 m(2) g(-1)) metal-doped SiO2 and SiO2/ Al2O3 supports for catalytic applications using as raw materials stainless steel slags. The acid digestion of these slags followed by a hydrothermal treatment results in transition metal oxides doped silicas and silica-aluminas that are used as support for platinum catalysts. The prepared catalysts are active in the total oxidation of CO and toluene, showing comparable activities to those shown by Pt catalysts supported on commercial SiO2.(c) 2007 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.