This work studied the antioxidant action of technical CNSL constituents, cardol (CD) and cardanol (CDN), and its synthetic derivative terc-butylated cardanol (terc-CDN) by electrochemical and computational methods. The electrochemical analyses were performed by square wave voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry in different pHs. The results showed that all compounds presented lower oxidation potentials when compared to the commercial product BHT (E-pa = 0.989 V). Cardol presented the best values (E-pa = 0.665 V). followed by terc-CDN (E-pa = 0.682 V) and CDN (E-pa = 0.989 V). The energy of the HOMO and LUMO orbitals, the Milliken charge and the analysis of molecular convergence obtained by computational methods confirmed the results obtained in electrochemical analysis proving that both techniques can be efficiently applied to this type of study. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.