A process for the recovery of combustible components of a gas stream containing the combustible components and oxygen by selective absorption of the combustible components in a solvent, whereby during the absorption the gas phase is dispersed in a continuous liquid phase of the solvent. In a preferred embodiment the process is applied to give a process for the epoxidation of propene with hydrogen peroxide in the alcoholic solvent in presence of a catalyst, wherein a gas stream including unreacted propene, propene oxide and oxygen from the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide is separated from the epoxidation reaction mixture and the combustible components in said gas stream are recovered using the process as described above.