Fick’s model together with Arrhenius relationship were successfully used to evaluate water absorption of chickpea during soaking at a temperature range of 20–97°C with 25kHz 100W, 40kHz 100W and 25kHz 300W ultrasound treatments. Use of ultrasound, increase in ultrasound power and soaking temperature significantly (P<0.05) increased the water diffusion coefficient (D eff ) of chickpea during soaking. Average gelatinization temperature of chickpea was found as 61.47°C. Activation energy (E a ) values of chickpea for below and above gelatinization temperature were found to be 28.69 and 9.34kJmol −1 , respectively. Ultrasound treatments significantly decreased the soaking time of chickpea.