A high quality nitrogen-rich mesoporous carbon material (FSAC) was prepared from carbonized fishery waste through chemical activation using NaOH. The obtained material had a high surface area of 1867 m(2)/g, pore size of 2.5 nm and mesopore volume of 0.38 cm(3)/g. The adsorption efficiency of FSAC was examined for methylene blue (MB) removal from aqueous solution in batch method. The effects of initial concentration of dye (25-400 mg/L), temperature (30-50 degrees C) and pH (3-11) on the adsorption of MB on FSAC were studied. Evaluation of MB uptake by FSAC revealed that Langmuir isotherm arid pseudo-second-order adsorption model adequately described the experimental data. The FSAC spontaneous arid endothermic MB uptake at 30 degrees C gave high adsorption capacity of 184.40 mg/g. These results show that FSAC can be used as an efficient and low cost adsorbent for cationic dye removal. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.