A highly tolerant phenol-degrading yeast strain PHB5 was isolated from wastewater effluent of a coke oven plant and identified as Candida tropicalis based on phylogenetic analysis. Biodegradation experiments with C. tropicalis PHB5 showed that the strain was able to utilize 99.4% of 2,400 mg l(-1) phenol as sole source of carbon and energy within 48 h. Strain PHB5 was also observed to grow on 18 various aromatic hydrocarbons. Haldane model was used to fit the exponential growth data and the following kinetic parameters were obtained: μ max = 0.3407 h(-1), K S = 15.81 mg l(-1), K i = 169.0 mg l(-1) (R (2) = 0.9886). The true specific growth rate, calculated from μ max, was 0.2113. A volumetric phenol degradation rate (V max) was calculated by fitting the phenol consumption data with Gompertz model and specific degradation rate (q) was calculated from V max. The q values were fitted with Haldane model, yielding following parameters: q max = 0.2766 g g(-1) h(-1), K S ' = 2.819 mg l(-1), K i ' = 2,093 (R (2) = 0.8176). The yield factor (Y X/S ) varied between 0.185 to 0.96 g g(-1) for different initial phenol concentrations. Phenol degradation by the strain proceeded through a pathway involving production of intermediates such as catechol and cis,cis-muconic acid which were identified by enzymatic assays and HPLC analysis.