Abstract: The activated carbon derived biomass waste corncob was investigated for the adsorption of antibiotic ciprofloxacin(CIP) from aqueous solution.The Box-Behnken design(BBD) of response surface methodology was used to optimize the operating conditions, the optimum adsorption conditions were found to be adsorption time of 537 min, adsorbent dosage of 0.46 g/L and pH 4.92. The results showed that the equilibrium adsorption amount of ciprofloxacin increased with the increase of temperature, and the adsorption equilibrium data were found to fit the Redlich-Peterson model and Sips model well. The thermodynamic parameters revealed the adsorption process of CIP on activated carbon was a spontaneous, endothermic and increasing entropy process.The Elovich model could perfectly describe the adsorption process of ciprofloxacin on activated carbon.At 298 K, the maximum adsorption capacity of ciprofloxacin was 238.01 mg/g, indicating that the corncob-based activated carbon was a promising adsorbent for the removal of ciprofloxacin from aqueous solution.