The electrochemical oxidation of phenol on Pt electrode has been investigated in 1 M NaOH and 0.5 M H2SO4 solutions at different temperature and different phenol concentration. A simplified mechanism for the electrochemical oxidation of phenol is proposed which includes a selective oxidation parallel with PtOx formation. Activation energy, which was obtained from the experimental data, was almost same in studied mediums. This means that electrooxidation mechanism for phenol must be same. Other thermodynamic values such as AS, Delta H were calculated from the experimental data. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.