Abstract: In this paper, the treatment of phenol-containing wastewater is studied by using UV/H 2O 2 system in a bench scale. The influence factors including concentration of H 2O 2 and phenol, pH, and some metal ions are investigated. The addition of H 2O 2 was favorable to the removal of phenol, however, the excess of H 2O 2 does not significantly affect the removal efficiency. It has shown that changes in reaction rates are rather insignificant over a wide pH range from 3 to 8. The co-existence of metal ions has significant influence upon the photocatalytic reaction rates, Fe 2+ increases the reaction rates, but Co 2O 3 and Zn 2+ given negative results. The mechanism of the reaction process is also discussed with chromatograms of phenol and its intermediate products.