An experiment was conducted in a batch reactor for a real printing and dyeing wastewater pretreatment using Fenton process in this study. The results showed that original pH, hydrogen peroxide concentration and ferrous sulfate concentration affected ORP value and pretreatment efficacy greatly. Under experimental conditions, the optimal original pH was 6.61, and the optimal hydrogen peroxide and ferrous sulfate concentrations were 1.50 and 0.75 g L-1, respectively. The relationship among ORP, original pH, hydrogen peroxide concentration, ferrous sulfate concentration, and color (COD or BOD5/COD) was established, which would be instructive in on-line monitoring and control of Fenton process using ORP. In addition, the effects of wastewater temperature and oxidation time on pretreatment efficacy were also investigated. With an increase of temperature, color and COD removal efficiencies and BOD5/COD ratio increased, and they were in proportion to the exponent of temperature reciprocal. Similarly, color and COD removal efficiencies increased with increasing oxidation time, and both color and COD removal obeyed the first-order kinetics. The BOD5/COD ratio could be expressed by a second-degree polynomial with respect to oxidation time, and the best biodegradability of wastewater was present at the oxidation time of 6.10 h. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.