The desorption of phenol from active carbon was studied using a continuous flow desorber. The system used was nearly water free to reduce water phenol interactions. An attempt to correlate the desorption data with the physical properties of phenol and solvents, in addition to regular solution theory, proved unsuccessful. A thermodynamic approach using the linear free energy enthalpy relationship produced a general trend by using the heat of solution for phenol in solution and a reasonable correlation using the heat of formation of the phenol solvent hydrogen bond with the desorption data.