This study investigates the potential use of bael shell carbon (BSC) as an adsorbent for the removal of congo red (CR) dye from aqueous solution. The effect of various operational parameters such as contact time, temperature, pH, and dye concentration were studied. The adsorption kinetics was modeled by first-order reversible kinetics, pseudo-first-order kinetics, and pseudo-second-order kinetics. The dye uptake process obeyed the pseudo-second-order kinetic expression at pH 5.7, 7 and 8 whereas the pseudo-first-order kinetic model was fitted well at pH 9. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin adsorption models were applied to fit adsorption equilibrium data. The best-fitted data was obtained with the Freundlich model. Thermodynamic study showed that adsorption of CR onto BSC was endothermic in nature and favorable with the positive Delta H degrees value of 13.613 kJ/mol. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.