Electrochemical pre-treatment of industrial wastewater to remove refractory and/or toxic organic components, making them more amenable to biological treatment, is likely to be more cost-effective than using a physical or chemical process for complete organic removal. This paper demonstrates the use of a carbon-based adsorbent material that preferentially removes chlorinated organic compounds. Electrochemical regeneration of the adsorbent is shown to be a quick, easy and cheap process, because the adsorbent is both highly electrically conducting and non-porous. High regeneration rates over a number of cycles were obtained by passing a charge of 25 C g(-1) through a bed of adsorbent particles, at a current density of 20 mA cm(-2) for 10 min. The energy required to remove a kg of COD from an industrial wastewater was calculated to be 27 kWh.