Magnesia (MgO) is a well-known adsorbent showing extremely high defluoridation capacity (DC). In order to over come the limitations of MgO for field applications, an attempt has been made to modify magnesia with abundant biomaterial chitosan to form magnesia/chitosan (MgOC) composite in a usable form and its merits over conventional magnesia and raw chitosan is established. Removal of fluoride from aqueous solution with MgO and MgOC composite was studied with batch equilibrium experiments. At equilibrium, MgOC composite has a DC of 4440 mg F-/kg while for magnesia it is only 2175 mg F-/kg. The physicochemical properties of the synthesised MgOC composite were analyzed with FTIR and SEM with EDAX studies. The equilibrium data were fitted with isotherm and kinetic models. Thermodynamic parameters viz, triangle G degrees, triangle H degrees and triangle S degrees were calculated to understand the nature of sorption. Field studies were carried out to find the suitability of these sorbents at field conditions. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.