BACKGROUND: Removal of phenol from industrial waste waters involves basic techniques namely extraction, biodegradation, photocatalytic degradation, etc. Among the available processes, the oxidation of phenols using H2O2 is a suitable alternative because of low cost and high oxidizing power. The application of an oxidation process for the decomposition of stable organic compounds in waste water leads to the total degradation of the compounds rather than transferring from one form to another. Since oxidation using Fenton's reagent is more dependent on pH, in this present work it was proposed to use H2O2 coupled with microwave irradiation. The effects of initial phenol concentration, microwave power and the irradiation time on the amount of decomposition were studied. RESULTS: In the present work experiments were conducted to estimate the percentage degradation of phenol for different initial concentrations of phenol (1100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 mg L-1), microwave power input (1180, 360, 540, 720 and 900 W) for different irradiation times. The kinetics of the degradation process were examined through experimental data and the decomposition rate follows first-order kinetics. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the design parameters for the present process. The interaction effect between the variables and the effect of interaction onto the responses (percentage decomposition of phenol) of the process was analysed and discussed in detail. The optimum values for the design parameters of the process were evaluated (initial phenol concentration 300 mg L-1, microwave power output 668 W, and microwave irradiation time 60 s, giving phenol degradation 82.39%) through RSM by differential approximation, and were confirmed by experiment. CONCLUSION: The decomposition of phenol was carried out using H2O2 coupled with microwave irradiation for different initial phenol concentrations, microwave power input and irradiation times. The phenol degradation process follows first-order kinetics. Optimization of the process was carried out through RSM by forming a design matrix using CCD. The optimized conditions were validated using experiments. The information is of value for the scale up of the oxidation process for the removal of phenol from wastewater. (C) 2008 Society of Chemical Industry