Rice husk was used as adsorbent to study Cu(II) removal efficiency from aqueous solution on the basis of adsorption kinetics and isotherm equations, breakthrough curves affected by flow rates and initial pH values were analyzed, surface characteristics of rice husk and Cu(II) removal mechanism was investigated with the help of SEM, FTIR, XRD and XRF. The adsorption process fit pseudo second order kinetics equation and Langmuir isotherm equation with adsorption capacity on Cu(II) 1.6173 mg•g^－1. The reaction could happen spontaneously. Environmental factors could affect shapes of breakthrough curves to some extent. Functional groups of OH and SiO-C_xH_y played an important role for Cu(II) removal, characteristic adsorption band of cellulose was found in XRD spectra, while no wave band of Cu(II) appeared after adsorption. Cu(II) was detected on rice husk after adsorption by XRF, it proved the reaction feasibility.

Key words: rice husk, Cu(II), adsorption kinetics, removal mechanism