Gold nanoparticles supported on activated carbon (Au/AC) have been tested in catalytic wet peroxide oxidation using phenol as target pollutant. In the current work, the effect of several operating conditions, including initial pH (3.5-10.5), catalyst load (0-6 g/L), initial phenol concentration (0.1-5 g/L), hydrogen peroxide dose (4-100% of the theoretical stoichiometric amount) and reaction temperature (50-80 degrees C) has been investigated. The results show that the Au/AC catalyst would be useful at relatively high pollutant to catalyst ratios (at least 0.4 w/w) and it can work efficiently within a wide range of pH (3.5-7.5). The catalyst suffers rapid deactivation but its activity can be completely restored by an oxidative thermal treatment at low temperature (200 degrees C). A kinetic model is presented, capable of describing the experimental results. This model is based on a rate equation of order one for hydrogen peroxide consumption and two for phenol oxidation and includes the catalyst deactivation and its temperature dependence. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.