The development of clean, sustainable chemical processes is a key priority towards meeting the growing demand for synthetic functional chemicals, while balancing rapidly depleting natural resources. The selective oxidation (selox) of crotyl alcohol to crotonaldehyde and the selective hydrogenation of benzyl cyanide to phenylethylamine are two specific systems for which, it is proposed, new heterogeneous catalysts and deeper mechanistic insight will improve. In this thesis the rational design of palladium catalysts is investigated for these systems, via synthesis of palladium nanoparticles with tailored morphology and palladium-gold nanoparticles with tuneable surface composition. Pd icosahedra, nanorods and nanocubes were synthesised and characterised extensively to confirm the size and morphology of the nanoparticles. Pd icosahedra are revealed to be three times more active for crotyl alcohol selox than the nanocubes, and ten times faster than the nanorods, while maintaining good selectivity. An Au-shell, Pd-core structure was synthesised, progressively annealed to induce alloying and characterised using various in situ spectroscopies. Surface Au was found to enhance crotyl alcohol selox activity and selectivity towards crotonaldehyde, in accordance with model predictions. An optimum crotonaldehyde yield was obtained for an Au40Pd60 surface alloy. By employing in situ and time-resolved spectroscopies the active site of Pd selox catalysts is examined, and the role of oxygen in this system and the catalyst’s kinetic behaviour is defined. Reversible redox cycling of the catalyst dependent on its environment was observed, and it was possible to identify PdOx as the active catalytic species responsible for selectively oxidising crotyl alcohol to crotonaldehyde, with high temperatures suppressing catalytic selectivity. Systematic characterisation of an industrial carbon supported Pd catalyst, used in nitrile hydrogenation, reveals potential sources of deactivation including surface poisoning by CN species. Solutions to improve catalyst performance are proposed using the knowledge acquired from the nanoparticle catalysts’ studies.