Catalytic oxidation of volatile organic compounds such as toluene over a range of silver‐based catalysts has been carried out to assess their performance. The properties of the catalysts were determined by the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method, X‐ray diffraction, and temperature‐programmed reduction. The experimental results revealed that the catalytic activity of an Ag/γ‐Al₂O₃ catalyst is closely related to the silver loading, and the optimum loading for the complete oxidation of toluene was found to be 11 wt%. The addition of copper to the 11 wt% Ag/γ‐Al₂O₃ catalyst greatly enhanced its catalytic activity, but the addition of cerium or lanthanum inhibited catalytic activity.