The catalytic behavior of CeO2 and this oxide doped with Ag (AgCeO2) were evaluated for the ethanol reaction to acetone in order to assess the mechanism proposed by Rodrigues et al. (2013). The oxides were characterized by BET, ICP-OES,TPD-NH3, isopropanol dehydration/dehydrogenation model reaction, TPR-H-2, TPD-H2O, WGS reaction and TPD-ethanol followed by DRIFTS-MS. The main effect of doping CeO2 with Ag is the increase of the reducibility of this oxide which leads to a higher selectivity to acetone and a lower towards ethylene. The acetone synthesis reduces the catalyst. Ceria dissociates H2O, which provides oxidant species for its own re-oxidation. Acetaldehyde is generated by the ODH reaction. The WGS reaction is a very interesting model for the redox reactions when H2O is employed as an oxidant agent. The mechanism proposed by Rodrigues et al. (2013) describes the behavior of CeO2 in the acetone synthesis from ethanol. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.