The reaction kinetics of the catalytic combustion of methyl-ethyl ketone (MEK) in diluted air streams over Fe2O3 catalyst has been investigated in this work. The kinetic data base has been generated under quasi-differential conditions in a fixed bed reactor with Fe2O3 prepared by thermal decomposition and calcined at 600 degreesC. A series-parallel reaction network is proposed for the catalytic combustion of MEK, and several kinetic models have been tested, ranging from the simple power law model to mechanistic approaches. It has been found that the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism with one type of active site over which adsorption of oxygen, MEK and carbon monoxide takes place, fits the experimental results obtained reasonably well. Moreover, the kinetic parameters so obtained are able to predict the performance of a Fe2O3 based catalytic membrane reactor. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.