The influence of an enhanced amount of nitrogen functionalities in activated carbon (AC) upon the adsorption of phenol from water was studied. The ACs were prepared from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and a mixture of PAN and coal-tar pitch (CTP) by a process of carbonization followed by activation with steam. Because AC produced from a mixture of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and CTP (1:1 w/w) has a high capacity to adsorb phenol, it was used as a reference of AC without nitrogen functionalities at the surface. All the ACs were characterized by similar porous textures but different nitrogen contents, in the range of 0.75-7.42 wt%. These features imply differences in the basicity of the carbon surface. The contribution of pyridinic nitrogen amounted to 26-34% of the total nitrogen content in the nitrogen-enriched ACs (N-ACs). The phenol adsorption measurements were carried out in static conditions at ambient temperature. The pseudo-second order kinetics and Langmuir models were found to fit the experimental data very well. For N-ACs the adsorption was characterized by a very high affinity of phenol towards the carbon surface. However, an enhanced nitrogen content improved the adsorption capacity of the AC only slightly. The adsorption of phenol occurred mainly in micropores smaller than 1.4 nm, where the pore filling mechanism prevails. The contribution of pyridinic nitrogen to phenol adsorption in wider micropores is discussed in details. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.