Techniques such as adsorption microcalorimetry and the dehydrogenation of alkenes are used to measure the differential heats of adsorption and reactivity of several catalyst surfaces. An adsorption microcalorimeter built specifically to determine adsorption heats is employed. CO was used as the probe molecule in this study and was adsorbed on the following catalysts: Pd/mordenite, Pd-Pt/ mordenite, and Pd-Ir/mordenite. The results show that the differential heat of adsorption was between 50 and 150 kJ/ mol. The adsorption heat decreases with an increased in CO coverage for all catalysts. The best conversion for alkene studies was seen on the Pd-Ir/mordenite, which was close to 70%.