In this study, apple, banana and orange peels were used as precursor compounds for the mass production of magnetite/carbon adsorbents. A so-called "soak-calcination" procedure was employed by firstly soaking these waste fruit peels in FeCl3 aqueous solutions and secondly calcining these precursors in the nitrogen atmosphere to yield final magnetite/carbon composites. This approach is quite simple and effective to synthesize carbon-based adsorbents on an industrial scale. The as-produced adsorbents feature the merits of appropriate ferromagnetism (> 4 emu g(-1)), high adsorption capacity (several hundreds of milligrams per gram for adsorption of methyl blue, Congo red, rhodamine B and Cr6+ ions), and good regenerability (> 85%). (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.