The present study was carried out to assess the ability of original waste mud (o-WM) and different types of activated waste mud which are acid-activated (a-WM) and precipitated waste mud (p-WM). in order to remove excess of fluoride from aqueous solution by using batch technique. The p-WM exhibited greater performance than the others. Adsorption studies were conducted as a function of pH, contact time, initial fluoride concentration, adsorbent concentration, temperature, etc. Studies were also performed to understand the effect of some co-existing ions present in aqueous solutions. Adsorption process was found to be almost independent of pH for all types of waste mud. Among the kinetic models tested for p-WM, pseudo-second-order model fitted the kinetic data well with a perfect correlation coefficient value of 1.00. It was found that the adequate time for the adsorption equilibrium of fluoride was only I h. Thermodynamic parameters including the Gibbs free energy (Delta G degrees), enthalpy (Delta H degrees), and entropy (Delta S degrees) revealed that adsorption of fluoride ions on the p-WM was feasible, spontaneous and endothermic in the temperature range of 0-40 degrees C. Experimental data showed a good fit with the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models. Results of this study demonstrated the effectiveness and feasibility of WM for removal of fluoride ions from aqueous solution. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.