Two commercial carbons (W20 and F20) had been selectively modified with nitric acid and thermal treatment under a flow of N 2 in present study to adsorb bisphenol A from aqueous solution. The results indicated that the experimental data were well described with pseudo-second-order kinetic model. W20 and its thermal modified sample (W20N) represented a better adsorption capacity, and the equilibrium adsorption amounts reached 382.12 and 432.34mg/g, respectively. Further, effects of temperature, pH and ionic strength on bisphenol A adsorption onto W20 and W20N had been examined. It was found that the adsorbed amount of bisphenol A decreased with the increase of temperature from 288 to 318K and changed little with the increase of pH from 5.0 to 9.0. At pH 11.0, the two activated carbons represented the weakest adsorption capacity. The adsorption capacities of bisphenol A onto W20 and W20N first decreased and then increased with the increasing of ionic strength.