The modification of biochar as a low-cost adsorbent is essential to improve its surface properties and shows great potential in water decontamination. The iron and zinc doped sawdust biochar (Fe/Zn-biochar) with large apparent surface area (518.54 m(2)/g) proposed in this work showed good performance for p-nitrophenol (PNP) removal compared with the pristine biochar (P-biochar), iron doped biochar (Fe-biochar) and zinc doped biochar (Zn-biochar) respectively. The batch experiments turned out that Fe/Zn-biochar exhibited larger PNP adsorption capacity under acidic pH solution, and the ionic strength had slightly negative impact on PNP adsorption. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms were discussed, and the experimental data fitted well the Pseudo-second-order equation and Langmuir model. The thermodynamic study indicated that the PNP adsorption was a spontaneous endothermic process. Furthermore, the simultaneous removal for PNP and Pb(II) by Fe/Zn-biochar was investigated. It implied that the adsorption of PNP and Pb(II) at their low concentration might be enhanced by the complexing-bridging mechanism of PNP and Pb(II) ascribing to the affinity between PNP and hydrophobic sites, in addition to the affinity between Pb(II) and oxygen-containing hydrophilic sites on Fegn-biochar surface. However, the predominated competition between PNP and Pb(II) at their high concentrations with Fe/Zn-biochar suppressed their adsorption. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.