The objective of this study is to explore the treatment conditions of austenitic stainless steel, AISI 304, for catalytic devices used in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) combustion. The variables studied were treatment exposure time, temperature and atmosphere. AISI 304 steel surface resulted in different morphologies depending on temperature and atmosphere. The oxide layer was composed of mixed oxides of Cr-Fe and Cr-Mn-Fe, forming octahedral and hexagonal crystals. The addition of manganese with the objective of reaching the ideal Mn/Fe ratio improved notably the catalytic performance.