The objective of the present work was to develop a thermal desorption method for the removal of tri-halomethanes (THM) adsorbed by humin, followed by multiple recycling of the fixed bed column in order to avoid excessive consumption of materials and reduce operating costs. The results obtained for adsorption on a fixed bed column confirmed the effectiveness of humin as an adsorbent, extracting between 45.9% and 90.1% of the total THM (TTHM). In none of the tests was the column fully saturated after 10 h. Experiments involving thermal desorption were used to evaluate the potential of the technique for column regeneration. The adsorptive capacity of the humin bed increased significantly (p < 0.05) between the first and fifth desorption cycle, by 18.9%, 18.1%, 24.2%, 20.2% and 24.2% for CHBr3, CHBr2Cl, CHBrCl2. CHCl3 and TTHM, respectively. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.