Astringent persimmon was chemically cross-linked by formaldehyde to obtain a novel kind of adsorption gel, which was named as APF gel. The adsorption behaviors of Mo(VI) and Re(VII) along with other coexisting metals onto the APF gel were studied in the present paper. The APF gel was found to be effective for the adsorption of Mo(VI) while the gel is almost completely inert toward rhenium and calcium over the whole hydrochloric acid concentration region. The APF gel has a low affinity for iron, copper, lead, nickel, manganese and zinc ions when the concentration of HCl is higher than 1 mol/L The gel exhibited selectivity only for Mo(VI) with a remarkably high adsorption capacity 1.05 mol/kg, and the adsorption behavior obeys the Langmuir model. According to the thermodynamic and kinetic studies, the endothermic adsorption process followed pseudo-second order kinetics. Also, its excellent adsorption characteristics for Mo(VI) were confirmed by the adsorption and elution tests using a column packed with the APF gel. The result provides a new approach for the recovery of Mo(VI) from a industrial waste effluent. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.