Many phenols of commercial interest are prepared by elaboration of phenol or cresols. They are typically produced by the alkylation of benzene/toluene with propylene to form cumene then  is added with  to form phenol (Hock process). In addition to the reactions above, many other more specialized reactions produce phenols:
* rearrangement of esters in the Fries rearrangement
* rearrangement of N-phenylhydroxylamines in the Bamberger rearrangement
* dealkylation of phenolic ethers
* reduction of quinones
* replacement of an aromatic amine by an hydroxyl group with water and sodium bisulfide in the Bucherer reaction
*thermal decomposition of aryl diazonium salts, the salts are converted to phenol
* by the oxidation of aryl silanes—an aromatic variation of the Fleming-Tamao oxidation
*catalytic synthesis from aryl bromides and iodides using nitrous oxide