BACKGROUND: The objective of this research was to study the biodegradation kinetics of a mixture of phenol, 4-chorophenol 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol in a moving bed sequencing batch reactor (SBR) subjected to starvation and shock loads. The effect was evaluated on the degradation time and on the specific degradation rate. RESULTS: The bacteria present in the system degraded effectively the mixture of phenols. Degradation efficiencies were higher than 98% as total phenols and greater than 95% as organic carbon. It was observed that starvation and shock loads had only a transient effect on microorganisms degradation rate. The substrate removal rate decreased when the perturbations were applied, but for subsequent SBR cycles the previous activity was recovered. Results also demonstrated that suspended biomass was more sensitive to changes than the attached biomass present in the moving bed. CONCLUSIONS: The moving bed SBR presented robust performance under variable influent concentrations of a mixture of inhibitory compounds. (C) 2011 Society of Chemical Industry