Biodegradation of phenol was studied using Pseudomonas pictorum (NCIM 2077) immobilized on alginate and activated carbon -alginate beads. Control experiments were also performed using free cells and non-inoculated activated carbon - alginate beads. The entrapped alginate and activated carbon - alginate beads suffer from a concentration gradient for oxygen in the interior of the beads and hence free cells showed better degradation at lower concentrations of phenol. The results on entrapped alginate beads were modeled using response surface methodology which determines the dependency of the maximum percentage of phenol degraded as a function of the independent variables, namely initial phenol concentration, initial pH, temperature, and diameter of the immobilized beads. The predicted values are in close agreement with the experimental values with the coefficient of correlation equal to 0.9999 and 0.9993 for both P pictorum - alginate beads and activated carbon - P pictorum - alginate beads respectively.