The remediation of groundwater contaminated by the common pollutant perchloroethylene (PCE) is reported. The studied process is adsorption using a fixed-bed column packed with granular activated carbon (GAC). An original setup was designed to perform the isotherms. Small particle sizes and full-scale GAC were tested. Adsorption capacity decreases with increasing particle size in the presence of natural organic matter. Columns running in dynamic-mode PCE in-feed were used to test three operating conditions. Sampling along the columns was used to monitor PCE concentration in the liquid phase at different column lengths. A large data set was collected. A mathematical model based on mass balance of PCE was adopted to predict the adsorption dynamics under various operating conditions. Global mass transfer coefficients were identified to find the best fit with the experimental data. The model was reliable and accurate over the whole data set. The performances of the fixed bed were evaluated in terms of operation time, total volume of decontaminated water, and degree of GAC utilization. The results showed that a trade-off has to be found between these performance parameters. The model developed here can be used to design full-scale fixed-bed columns and optimize the three key parameters.