In the present paper, a metal-organic framework Cr-BDC was prepared and used as adsorbent for adsorption of o-nitrophenol (ONP) and p-nitrophenol (PNP) from aqueous solutions. Cr-BDC was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and BET methods. The results indicate that Cr-BDC gets a very large specific surface area of 4128m(2).g(-1) and pore sizes are concentrated in 1 nm, which is a benefit for using for wastewater treatment. The influences of the adsorption conditions, such as temperature, solution concentration, adsorption time and reusability on adsorption performance were investigated. Cr-BDC exhibited an encouraging uptake capacity of 310.0 mg.g(-1) for ONP, and adsorption capacity of Cr-BDC for ONP is significantly higher than that for PNP under suitable adsorption conditions. The characterizations of adsorption process were examined with the Lagergren pseudo-first-order, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and the intra-particular diffusion model. Kinetics experiments indicated that the pseudo-second-order model displayed the best correlation with adsorption kinetics data. Furthermore, our adsorption equilibrium data could be better described by the Freundlich equation. The results indicate that the as-prepared Cr-BDC is promising for use as an effective and economical adsorbent for ONP removal. (C) 2017 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.