The aim of this paper was to investigate the efficiency of different sorbent materials for oil removal from wastewater. Two types of sorbents were investigated: organic (loose natural wool fibers (NWF) and recycled wool based nonwoven material (RWNM)) and inorganic (sepiolite). Sorption was carried out in continuous tubular contractor (initial oil concentration of 1511 mg/dm(3)) and batch tank (initial oil concentration of 5066 mg/dm(3)). Wool-based sorbents showed higher sorption capacity (5.56 g/g for NWF and 5.48 g/g for RWNM) compared to sepiolite (0.19 g/g) in case of sorption in batch tank. The study on sorption in continuous tubular contractor suggested that volume of oily wastewater strongly affected oil removal. The results indicated that the combination of extractive-gravimetric and FTIR spectrophotometric methods can be recommended for precise determination of oil concentration, being suitable as a controlling tool for oil detection. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.