The performance of different palladium catalysts - supported on activated carbon, carbon nanofiber and high surface area graphite - for the abatement of trichloroethylene in synthetic wastewaters (880 ppm) has been studied in this manuscript. Experiments were carried out at 303 K and 5 MPa in a batch reactor. Catalytic activities (expressed as exposed metal-based pseudo-first order kinetic constant) have been correlated to different physico-chemical properties of the catalysts, concluding that Pd dispersion is the main factor affecting catalyst performance. The reaction is strongly structure sensitive, being the largest Pd particles the most active for this reaction under the studied conditions. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.