An integrated adsorptive technique combining an m-cresol adsorption unit, an acid retardation unit and an m-toluidine adsorption unit in sequence was designed to recover m-cresol and m-toluidine from highly acidic and salty m-cresol manufacturing wastewater. In the first column packed with hypercrosslinked polymeric resin (NDA-99), most m-cresol was captured through pi-pi and hydrogen-bonding interactions as well as the salting-out effect, while m-toluidine was not absorbed due to protonation. To separate acid from salt, an acid retardation unit was introduced successively to adsorb sulfuric acid by strong base anion exchange resin (201 x 7). After the acid retardation unit and mild neutralization reaction, the last column filled with NDA-99 was applied to trap neutral m-toluidine from the salty effluent. Moreover, the eluent of the acid retardation unit was utilized as the regenerant to recover m-toluidine, and the recycled high-acidity and low-salinity solution of m-toluidine was directly used to produce m-cresol as the raw material. Therefore, the proposed method not only efficiently recycled m-cresol and m-toluidine, but also reduced the consumption of alkali dramatically (saving 0.1628 tit wastewater). These findings will inspire design of integrated adsorptive techniques for treating complex organic wastewater with high efficiency and low cost. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.