Carbon prepared from silk cotton hull was used to remove a textile dye (reactive blue MR) from aqueous solution by an adsorption technique under varying conditions of agitation time, dye concentration, adsorbent dose and pH. Adsorption depended on solution pH, dye concentration, carbon concentration and contact time. Equilibrium was attained with in 60 min. Adsorption followed both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The adsorption capacity was found to be 12.9 mg/g at an initial pH of 2 +/- 0.2 for the particle size of 125250 pm at room temperature (30 +/- 2 degrees C). (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.