As a consequence of the population growth, major efforts have been made by the Egyptian government to construct new industrial areas. Tenth of Ramadan City is one of the most important industrial cities in Egypt. The wastewater generated from various industrial activities was highly contaminated with organic matters as indicated by COD (1750-3323 mg/L), TSS (900-3000 mg/L) and oil and grease (13.2-95.5 mg/L). All overall appraisals of the analytical data from the industrial wastewater indicate that pretreatment is required for all industrial sectors to achieve compliance with the Egyptian Environmental law which requires effective pretreatment of industrial wastewater prior to its discharge into public sewers. Treatability studies via conventional and Fenton processes have been investigated. The efficiency of conventional treatment methods led to 63% COD and 44% color removal by using FeCl3 as coagulant. Various coagulant aids and powdered activated carbon (PAC) were added to 400 mg/L FeCl3 in order to enhance the removal of color. It was found that polyacrylamide polymer, bentonite and PAC increased the efficiency of the treatments where the color removal increased to 79%, by cationic polymer, 73% by anionic polymer, 84.5% by bentonite and 95% for 0.4 g/L PAC. Fenton process was investigated which under the operating conditions (pH 3.0 +/- 0.2, Fe2+ dose = 400 mg/L and H2O2 = 550 mg/L), color removal up to 100% and more than 90% of COD removal were achieved. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.