Here, we are going to report a simple, low-cost and environmental friendly process to prepare catenulate flowery iron (Fe). Magnetite (FeFe2O4) with similar 3D morphology is gained at room temperature for the first time by aging of iron in water. The saturation magnetizations of these two products are totally high, which are 121.59 emu/g for Fe and 90.2 emu/g for FeFe2O4. It is not usual for Fe3O4 with lamellar structure because magnetic saturation for well defined Fe3O4 single crystals is 92 emu/g. Because of the special appearance with large surface area, adsorption experiments of organic dye, sulfonamide and heavy metal ions are carried out in synthetic wastewater. Adsorption rate of two magnetic samples-iron and magnetite-can achieve more than 98% in 5 min. It is worthy to note that, in adsorption experiment of Cr-VI, the adsorption rate of Fe can achieve 100% in 5 min. The equilibrium times of all productions can be controlled in a short span of 30 min. Achieve high performance of adsorption in a short time, which perform a great advantage in water treatment applications of such materials. Finally, regeneration experiments of FeFe2O4 which adsorbed Congo red show that the as prepared sample can be well-regenerated, and after regeneration, the magnetic adsorbents can still show more than 97.6% adsorption capacity. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.