This paper deals with the control of the temperature in non-isothermal stirred-tank reactors involvingM(M⩾ 1) chemical reactions. The proposed control algorithm is an input-output linearization controller which accounts for the well-known process nonlinearities. The control scheme is also adaptive in order to deal with the parameter uncertainty: in particular it is shown how to include explicit on-line estimates of theMactivation energies within the adaptive linearizing controller. The performance of the control law is illustrated in simulation.