Environmental contamination in groundwater involving a variety of nonbiodegradable toxic xylidines from industrial or military effluents is a matter of growing concern. Besides the traditional nondestructive treating methods to remove these substances in water bodies, the application of advanced oxidation technologies such as Fenton photoassisted reactions seems a suitable way to remove and mineralize these contaminants and is the aim of the present study. Primary photochemical reactions in the water solutions of ferric chloride complexes in the absence and in the presence of H 2 O 2 were examined by laser photolysis (λ ) 347 nm) using xylidine (2,4-dimethylaniline, XYL) as probe molecule. The Cl 2 •radicals are formed as a result of the reaction of Cl • atoms and OH • radicals produced during the photodissociation of ferric chloride and ferric hydroxy complexes in the presence of Clanion. The oxidation of xylidine by Cl • or Cl 2 •lead to the formation of the XYL + radical-cation [C 8 H 9 NH 2 ] •+ , having an absorption maximum at λ ) 420 nm which was unambiguously identified by pulsed laser spectroscopy. The decay of XYL + radicals in solution takes place within 2 ms in a secondorder reaction with 2k ) 10 9 (M s) -1 . In solutions containing XYL/H 2 O 2 /FeCl 3 , increasing the oxidant concentration increased the amount of XYL + , indicating that the H 2 O 2 competes with the Cland XYL for the available Cl • in solution. This was not the case of the anion-radical Cl 2 •-. To decide if the radical Cl 2 •or ClOH •prevails after photoexcitation of ferric chloride solutions, a reaction scheme was considered for the formation of the radicals at acidic pH through simultaneous differential equations. The reaction sequence could be kinetically modeled on the basis of laser spectroscopic measurements. The rate constant of Cl 2 •with XYL was found (3.7 ( 0.3) × 10 7 (M s) -1 . Cl • atoms oxidize XYL in the reaction with a constant (4.0 ( 2.0) × 10 10 (M s) -1 . The Cl • atoms react with H 2 O 2 with (1.8 ( 0.7) × 10 10 (M s) -1 . The reaction of Cl • atoms with H 2 O 2 explains the decrease observed for XYL •+ and Cl 2 •radicals in solution with increasing H 2 O 2 concentration. The latter rate constant was observed to be about 5 orders of magnitude higher than the rate constant for the reaction k(Cl 2 •-+ H 2 O 2 f 2Cl -+ H + + HO 2 • ) ) (9.0 ( 0.4) × 10 4 (M s) -1 .