The sorption of atrazine from water has been studied using a conventional activated carbon, F400, an annealed carbon sample, F400AN, and an aminated carbon sample, F400NH(2). Characterisation of the carbon samples showed that sample F400NH(2) had the highest proportion of micropores, but had the lowest values of point of zero charge (PZC) and iso-electric point (IEP). This was attributed to the existence of a high proportion of oxygen containing functional groups. Sorption data showed that sample F400AN was superior in the sorption of atrazine to samples F400 and F400NH(2). It was noted that pore size distribution alone was not the only contributing factor for the uptake of atrazine onto the activated carbons. The sorption data were fitted well using the Freundlich isotherm. The free energy change showed that sorption of atrazine on activated carbons is a spontaneous process. A pseudo-second order kinetic model was used for analysing the kinetic data, and it was concluded that adsorption of atrazine was controlled by a film diffusion mechanism. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.