Pearl shells are the main waste of the pearl industry, which discards millions of tons of pearl shells each year in China. To date, the use of pearl shells in the complete oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has not been reported. In this paper, shell powder (SP) was used as a carrier for ceria and Pd catalysts for the complete oxidation of benzene. The influence of the ceria promoter on the texture/structure and catalytic performance of Pd/SP was investigated. The results show that adding ceria into the SP support increased the BET surface area and total pore volume and decreased the sinterability of SP. The catalytic activity and H-2 temperature-programmed reduction (H-2-TPR) results show that adding ceria can greatly improve the oxidation properties of Pd/SP catalysts and enhance the catalytic activity for the complete oxidation of benzene. The improvement in the catalytic activity is mainly due to the optimization of the catalyst texture/structure and redox properties by the strong interaction of Pd and ceria and the addition of ceria. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.