A perspective environmentally-benign one-pot approach to the synthesis of complicated amines by alcohol amination was investigated in this work by mathematical modeling using myrtenol, which represents a natural terpene alcohol, and aniline as model substrates. The reaction was studied in the presence of Au/ZrO2 catalyst in the temperature range 413-453 K under kinetic control. Mechanistic model taking into account catalyst deactivation was developed from a proposed reaction mechanism and corresponding kinetic equations were derived. Kinetic model was compared with experimental data through numerical data fitting showing good correspondence. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.