The liquid-phase catalytic hydrogenation of iso-valeraldehyde to iso-amyl alcohol was studied in a slurry reactor. The kinetics of liquid-phase hydrogenation of iso-valeraldehyde over a 5% Ru/Al2O3 catalyst was studied in the range of temperature 373-393 K and H-2 pressure 0.68-2.72 MPa using 2-propanol as the solvent. The selectivity to iso-amyl alcohol was 100%. The kinetic data were analyzed using a simple power law model. A single site Langmuir-Hinshelwood type model suggesting dissociative adsorption of hydrogen and surface reaction as the rate-controlling step provided the best fit of the experimental data. The catalyst could be reused thrice without any loss in activity.