The adsorption of three separate acid dyes onto activated carbon has been studied using fixed bed adsorption. A film-pore diffusion model was developed and applied to the experimental breakthrough curve data. A sensitivity analysis showed that pore diffusion was the dominant mass transport mechanism. Pore diffusion coefficients were determined by an optimization routine with a minimization of the sum of errors squared. The external mass transfer coefficients were sensitive to the external fluid dynamic parameters, such as liquid flow rate and mean particle size. These fluid dynamic parameters did not affect the effective diffusion coefficient. The effective diffusion coefficient was not affected by changes in the fluid dynamic parameters but did change with differing initial dye concentrations. This may be due to a contribution from surface diffusion to the effective diffusion coefficient. (C) 2003 Society of Chemical Industry.