Several studies have taken place in order to find an alternative bleaching process which replaces the chlorinated compounds with environmentally friendly agents as well as recycles the effluents, instead of discharging them. In this study we employed hydrogen peroxide and Keggin-type heteropolyacids for the selective removal of lignin from the pulp. We used heteropolyacids containing W, Mo and Mo/V, in aqueous solution, to bleach different commercial pulps with hydrogen peroxide. Kraft pulp, water, heteropolyacid (5 mmol l(-1)) and H2O2 (1% why) were combined to obtain a final pulp consistency of 3%. The mixture was heated in a glass reactor to 60, 80 or 100 degrees C for 2 or 4 h. The best experiment furnished a pulp with a Kappa number of 3.2 and a viscosity of 17.1 cP, using H3PMo12O40 and 1% H2O2 (w/w) at 60 degrees C for 4 h.