In this work, a sensitive and reliable electrochemical platform was developed for catechol (CC) and hydroquinone (HQ) individual and sensitive simultaneous detection. Due to the outstanding advantages of low cost, excellent flexibility, large surface area, and good conductivity, an exfoliated graphite paper (EGP) was used as a supported electrode for gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) electrodeposition to fabricate a sensor (AuNPs/EGP). Scanning electron microscope and cyclic voltammetry results revealed that AuNPs/EGP was successfully prepared with multi-layered structure and enhanced electron transfer ability. Under the optimized conditions, the sensor showed wide linear range for CC and HQ detection of 5.0 x 10 (7) - 1.0 x 10 (4) mol/L and 7.0 x 10 (8) - 1.0 x 10 (4) mol/L with limitation of detection (S/N = 3) of 4.13 x 10 (8) mol/L and 2.73 x 10 (8) mol/L, respectively. And the proposed sensing platform was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of CC and HQ in real samples of three kinds of water with reliable recovery. The low cost, facile preparation, and attractive electrochemical performances made the graphite paper based sensor promise perspectives in the field of electroanalysis. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.