A novel ceramic adsorbent was developed to adsorb ammonium from high concentration ammonium contaminated wastewater. Typical gardening cultivation mediums in Japan-Kanuma clay and Akadama clay were used to synthesize the ceramic adsorbent. Static batch experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of various parameters such as contact time, initial ammonium concentration, adsorbent dosage, and competing cations during the ammonium adsorption process. The results revealed that the Freundlich isotherm model fitted better with the adsorption process than the Langmuir model, and the adsorption process was well described by pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The maximum nitrogen adsorption capacity of the ceramic adsorbent was 75.5 mg g(-1) at an initial NH4+-N concentration of 10,000 mg L-1, dosage of 20 g L-1, and contact time of 480 min. Results demonstrated that the low-cost ceramic adsorbent directly used as nitrogen fertilizer was feasible for its high ammonium nitrogen content, nontoxic effect on the environment and excellent soil properties. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.