To promote organic pollutant treatment efficiency by improving mass transfer, a novel fluidized electrochemical reactor that integrated advanced electrochemical oxidation process (AEOP) with activated carbon (AC) fluidization in a single cell was developed for model pollutant p-nitrophenol (PNP) abatement. Synergetic effect on COD removal was found in such a combined process and the COD removal efficiency was enhanced to be 97.8%. The combined process has been proved to be a promising abatement process for biorefractory organic pollutants degradation, which is advantageous over using either AEOP or adsorption alone. The roles of the location of AC in the cell, liquid flowrate, AC mass and initial PNP concentrations on COD removal were investigated to optimize the performance. A lumped kinetic model based on adsorption/electrocatalysis/oxidation mechanism for COD removal was proposed to predict the role of adsorption, electrocatalysis and oxidation in the combined process. The output of the kinetic model was found to be in good agreement with the experimental data obtained at various initial PNP concentrations and AC mass. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.