Adsorption equilibria of two amino acids (phenylalanine and tryptophan) and two antibiotics (penicillin G and cephalosporin C) from aqueous solutions onto non-ionic polymeric sorbents (XAD-4 and XAD-16) were investigated under various experimental conditions such as pH, temperature and organic solvents. The assumption that amino acids adsorbed on polymeric sorbents were desorbed by competitive adsorption with organic solvent as a desorbate was verified using binary adsorption data for amino acids (phenylalanine and tryptophan) and organic solvents (isopropyl alcohol and methanol) on XAD-4 and XAD-16. The experimental data were predicted by using multicomponent adsorption models of an Extended-Langmuir (EL) equation and an ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) based on the Langmuir equation as a single-component isotherm. (C) 2004 Society of Chemical Industry.