Phenolic compounds were often encountered in industrial effluents. It is a serious pollution problem while discharging the wastewater without treatment. A pseudomonas putida strain capable of degrading phenol in wastewater was utilized to investigate the kinetics of phenol removal and, hopefully, to meet the standard of discharge. In the suspended cell and immobilized cell systems, the degradation rates of phenol were determined as a function of pH values, temperatures, and phenol concentrations. The experimental results showed that the trends of the effects of environmental factors (temperature, pH value, etc.) on the degradation of phenol were similar for both suspended and immobilized cell systems. Generally speaking, the operation at a temperature higher than 40oC and a pH lower than 5 was unfavorable. The kinetic experiments of the suspended cell systems at 30℃, pH 6.83 and phenol concentrations between 25 to 600 ppm were conducted and the parameters of Haldane model were evaluated. The intermediate (catechol) could be detected in the immobilized cell systems, but this is not the case in the suspended cell systems as well as in the immobilized cell system at low and high levels of phenol. This implied that the effect of mass transfer was considerable in immobilized cell system. The degradation process involved the chemical reaction and intraparticle mass diffusion in the immobilized cell systems.