Phenols are expected to be one of the most significant organic groundwater contaminants resulting form a UCC burn, so it is important to know the ability of phenol on a clay, raw coal, and clean coal. In each case adsorption follows a Langmuir isotherm the adsorption capacity of the clay is 3.52 mg g wile two different slopes, indicating two different kinds of sites, were observed for clean coal. For one of these an adsorption capacity of 8.3 mg g-1 was observed while it was 108 mg g-1 for the other. Diazomethane was used to methyl ate hydroxyl groups of clay and coal; this leads to a reduction in adsorption capacity for both clay and coal, but the effect is much more pronounced for clay then for coal . It can be concluded that phenol will be adsorbed from aqueous solution rater effectively by coal and that at the very high phenol concentrations found in groundwater in the vicinity of test urns multilayer adsorption occurs in such a manner as to further reduce the mobility of phenol.