Description:    The competitive adsorption of organic pollutants—phenol, aniline and n -heptane—from biologically treated coking wastewater on powdered activated carbon (PAC) was studied. Firstly, batch adsorption experiments of coking wastewater were conducted to investigate the effect of pH and temperature on their adsorption. Results showed that long-chain alkanes, benzoic, halogenated and phenolic compounds were adsorbed well under acidic condition, while amines were adsorbed well under alkaline condition; maximum co-adsorption amount of all kinds of organic compounds occurred at around pH 5. Then, Lagergren kinetic model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model were used to describe the adsorption process of phenol and aniline on PAC. The data were fitted very well with pseudo-second-order kinetics, and the adsorption capacity decreased with an increase in temperature, belonging to Freundlich multi-layer physical adsorption. The adsorption speed and capacity of phenol were superior to aniline in unitary and binary solution. The adsorption amount of n -heptane decreased by 26.6 % from ternary competitive absorption system of phenol, aniline and n -heptane compared with that in unitary solutions, which showed that phenol and aniline caused spatial adsorption steric hindrance to n -heptane. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s11270-012-1365-4 Authors Yuan Ren, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Panyu District, Guangzhou, 510006 People’s Republic of China Ting Li, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Panyu District, Guangzhou, 510006 People’s Republic of China Chaohai Wei, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Panyu District, Guangzhou, 510006 People’s Republic of China Journal Water, Air, & Soil Pollution Online ISSN 1573-2932 Print ISSN 0049-6979 Journal Volume Volume 224 Journal Issue Volume 224, Number 1