Adsorption is considered to be one of the more promising technologies for capturing CO2 from flue gases. For post-combustion capture, the success of such an approach is however dependent on the development of an adsorbent that can operate competitively at relatively high temperatures. In this work, low cost carbon materials derived from fly ash, are presented as effective CO2 sorbents through impregnation these with organic bases, for example, polyethylenimine aided by polyethylene glycol. The results show that for samples derived from a fly ash carbon concentrate, the CO2 adsorption capacities were relatively high (up to 4.5 wt%) especially at high temperatures (75 degrees C), where commercial active carbons relying on physi-sorption have low capacities. The addition of PEG improves the adsorption capacity and reduces the time taken for the sample to reach the equilibrium. No CO2 seems to remain after desorption, suggesting that the process is fully reversible. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.