Niobium-doped ceria catalysts were synthesized to study soot oxidation activity. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman analysis of the samples revealed the presence of a fluorite structure of CeO 2 for all the doped samples. The T 50 temperature of the pure CeO 2 sample was more significant than that of bare soot. The high catalytic activity of the CeO 2 catalyst can be attributed to the low crystallite size, high facet ratio, and the large Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area as compared to Nb-doped samples. The activation energy calculated by both Ozawa and KAS methods were found to be low for CeO 2 when compared to Nb-doped samples. CeO 2 resulted in better soot oxidation activity with low activation energy.