Leather industry inevitably generates a large amount of skin split waste (SSW) due to the necessary operation of splitting in leather making process. in this study, two adsorbents, SSW-Fe and SSW-Al, were prepared by loading Fe(III) and Al(III) onto SSW. and their adsorption behaviors to phosphate in industrial wastewater were investigated through batch and column adsorption experiments. The macro-adsorption kinetics data obtained from batch experiments were well fitted by the pseudo-second-order rate model and the adsorption isotherms can be well described by the Langmuir equation. The adsorption behaviors of the columns can be well described by Yoon and Nelson model and the time at breakthrough point can be accurately predicted by this model. It was found that the metal-loaded adsorbents prepared by using SSW as supporting matrix can effectively remove phosphate from industrial wastewater. The leakage of metal ions during adsorption process is neglectable. These results indicate that the metal-loaded SSW adsorbents have a good future in practical application for the removal of phosphate from industrial wastewater. Crown Copyright (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.