The adsorption equilibria of phenol and aniline on nonpolar polymer adsorbents (NDA-100, XAD-4, NDA-16 and NDA-1800) were investigated in single- and binary-solute adsorption systems at 313 K. The results showed that all the adsorption isotherms of phenol and aniline on these adsorbents can be well fitted by Freundlich and Langmuir equations, and the experimental uptake of phenol and aniline in all binary-component systems is obviously higher than predicted by the extended Langmuir model, arising presumably from the synergistic effect caused by the laterally acid-base interaction between the adsorbed phenol and aniline molecules. A new model (MELM) was developed to quantitatively describe the synergistic adsorption behavior of phenol/aniline equimolar mixtures in the binary-solute systems and showed a marked improvement in correlating the binary-solute adsorption of phenol and aniline by comparison with the widely used extended Langmuir model. The newly developed model confirms that the synergistic coefficient of one adsorbate is linearly correlated with the adsorbed amount of the other, and the larger average pore size of adsorbent results in the greater synergistic effect of phenol/aniline equimolar mixtures adsorption. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.