This study was carried out to determine the effect of influent pH and alkalinity on the performance of sequential UASB and RBC reactors for the removal of 2-CP and 2.4-DCP from two different simulated wastewaters. The performance of methanogens at low (<6.0) to high (>8.0) pH values and at sufficiently high alkalinity (1500-3500 mg/l as CaCO(3)) is described in this paper. Sequential reactors were capable of handling wastewaters with influent pH, 5.5-8.5. However, with influent pH 7.0 +/- 0.1 UASB reactor showed best performance for 2-CP (99%) and 2,4-DCP (88%) removals. Increase in alkalinity/COD ratio in the influent (>1.1) caused gradual decrease in the chlorophenol removal in UASB reactors. The UASB reactors could not tolerate wastewater with higher alkalinity/COD ratio (2.6) and showed significant deterioration of its performance in terms of chlorophenols removal achieving only 74.7% 2-CP and 60% 2,4-DCP removals, respectively. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.