The capability of wheat straw to adsorb Ni2+ and Zn2+ was investigated using a batch system. The equilibrium removal of metal ions was obtained between 2.5 and 5 h for Ni2+ and about 3 h for Zn2+ over the initial concentration range from 5 to 150 ppm. Of the total amount of metal uptake by wheat straw, about 50% was adsorbed in the first 30 min. At a low initial concentration of 5 ppm, wheat straw was capable to reduce the metal concentration down to less than 1 ppm. For single-metal solutions, among the three models tested, namely the Langmuir, the Freundlich and the Temkin isotherms, the Freundlich model was suitable to describe the adsorption equilibrium for Ni2+ and Zn2+. For bimetal solutions, the IAST-Freundlich multicomponent isotherm best fitted the experimental data, among the four isotherm models investigated. the modified Langmuir multicomponent model, the Langmuir partially competitive model, the Freundlich multicomponent model and the IAST-Freundlich multicomponent model. The negative Gibbs free energy changes obtained at lower concentrations indicates that the adsorption was spontaneous. However, the spontaneity of the biosorption decreased with increases in the metal concentration from 5 to 50 ppm. For metal concentrations higher than 50 ppm. the adsorption became non-spontaneous. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of wheat straw were also taken to exam the surface structure of the wheat straw along with the energy dispersive spectrum (EDS) analysis. The results obtained confirmed the adsorption of Ni2+ and Zn2+ on wheat straw, and showed that the inner surface of the wheat straw appeared to provide more adsorption sites for metal binding. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.