The present work investigates the adsorptive interactions of Ni(II) ions with kaolinite, montmorillonite, and their poly(oxo zirconium) and tetrabutylammonium derivatives in aqueous medium. Batch adsorption studies were carried out with various Ni(II) concentrations, amount of clay adsorbents, pH, agitation time and temperature. The adsorption is strongly dependent on pH of the medium with enhanced adsorption as the pH turns from acidic to alkaline side till precipitation sets in. The process was very fast initially and maximum adsorption was observed within 180 min of agitation. The kinetics of the interactions, tested with pseudo first order Lagergren equation, second order kinetics, Elovich equation, liquid film diffusion model and intra-particle diffusion mechanism, showed better agreement with second order kinetics (k(2) = 1.3 x 10(-2) to 5.3 x 10(-2) g/(mg min)). The adsorption data gave good fits with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and yielded Langmuir monolayer capacity of 2.75 to 21.14 mg/g and Freundlich adsorption capacity of 0.70 to 3.40 mg((l-1/n)) mg(l/n) /g for the clay adsorbents. The adsorption process was exothermic with Delta H in the range of -24.0 to -45.1 kJ/mol accompanied by decrease in entropy (Delta S: -118.2 to -160.5 J/(mol K)) and Gibbs energy (Delta G: -34.6 to -49.5 kJ/mol). The results have shown that montmorillonite has the largest adsorption capacity followed by ZrO-montmorillonite, TBA-montmorillonite, kaolinite, ZrO-kaolinite and TBA-kaolinite. Introduction of ZrO- and TBA- groups into the clays reduced their adsorption capacity by blocking the available adsorption sites. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.