Oxidation of alcohols into corresponding ketones is efficiently catalyzed by heterogeneous gold nanoparticles. Use of H2O2 instead of O-2 (g) is the main feature of our methodology since maintaining the required pressure of O-2 (g) at elevated temperature is not easy. The reaction does not require any co-catalyst. After completion of the reaction, the catalyst could be recovered by centrifugation and reused several times with only a slight decrease in activity. Thus our present protocol, which is comprised of green reagent, solvent and catalyst, is completely clean. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.