In a nuclear accident eventuality, the decontamination of potable water without disturbing the water quality is one of the major challenges. During this work, efforts have been made to reduce the contamination of americium (Am)-241 from potable water effectively by using calcium alginate followed by treatment with activated charcoal. Laboratory simulated experiments were carried out for the removal of low level of Am-241 from the potable water originated from groundwater, rain water and lake water. Water samples after filtering through 0.451 mu m filter paper were spiked in the range of 10-200 Bq L-1 of Am-241 as Am(NO3)(3). In the pH range 1-8, 60-98% Am was sorbed in the beads with a maximum observed at pH 4 +/- 0.2. It was observed that the variation of carbonate, bicarbonate, does not influence the sorption capacity of calcium alginate whereas the DOC decreased the sorption capacity in the range of 40-93% depending on DOC concentration. Ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of Am is recovered from sodium alginate beads by using 0.6 M HNO3. The mechanism of interaction of Am with calcium alginate is proposed based on attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.