Waste fibrous biomass (flax) has been processed using non-woven textile techniques to produce a fibrous fabric material. The biomass fabric was then processed to produce activated carbons which retained their structure and flexibility. The carbons produced in a range of process conditions possessed a range of different surface areas and porosities. The activated carbons produced by chemical activation at different temperatures had high surface areas, ranging from 126 m(2) g(-1) for the activated carbon produced at 450 degrees C to 1177 m(2) g(-1) produced at 800 degrees C activation temperature. At increased hold times at 800 degrees C the surface areas increased further, for example reaching 1656 m(2) g(-1) at 2 h hold time. The activated carbons were found to be very microporous, containing very small micropores. The produced activated carbons were then investigated in terms of the removal of sulphur dioxide in a bench scale continuous flow reactor. The SO2 adsorption results showed that for the waste biomass fibre carbons, uptake of SO2 from the gas stream was found to be dependent on the degree of activation. As the micropore volume and surface area of the samples increased, the SO2 adsorption capacity also increased, observing a linear relationship. The adsorption of SO2 by the waste derived activated carbons was significantly higher when compared to commercially obtained activated carbons. This appeared to be related to the pore size distribution of the samples, with the waste biomass activated carbons possessing a greater number of ultra-micropores than the commercial samples. Increase in the temperature of the activated carbon bed led to a marked decrease in the adsorption of SO2. Uptake of SO2 was also shown to be dependent on the concentration of the SO2 inlet feed gas, where higher SO2 concentrations led to enhanced uptake. The advantages of using textile processing techniques to produce a non-woven fabric activated carbon enabling different forms to be produced related to the end-use application has great potential for resource recovery. (C) 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.