Palladium (Pd) is an attractive catalyst for a range of new combustion applications comprising primary new technologies for future industrial energy needs, including gas turbine catalytic combustion, auto exhaust catalysts, heating and fuel cells. Pd poses particular challenges because it changes both chemical state and morphology as a function of temperature and reactant environment and those changes result in positive and negative changes in activity. Interactions with the support, additives, water, and contaminants as well as carbon formation have also been observed to affect Pd catalyst performance. This report describes the results of a 3.5 year project that resolves some of the conflicting reports in the literature about the performance of Pd-based catalysis.