The adsorption kinetics of binary hydrocarbon gas mixtures onto activated carbon (AC) were studied by the heterogeneous finite kinetics (FK) model [D.D. Do, K. Wang, AIChE J. 44 (1998) 68], which assumes three mass transfer mechanisms coexisting inside AC. The bulk phase diffusion is described by the Maxwell-Stefan equation and the driving force for surface diffusion is the chemical potential gradient. The distribution of the slit-shaped micropores (MPSD) is taken as the source of surface heterogeneity, which affects the adsorption equilibria as well as kinetics via the dispersive interaction between adsorbate molecules and carbon surface. An adsorbate-pore interaction mechanism is employed to describe the matching energies between different species in the adsorbed phase in equilibria as well as kinetics processes. The adsorption, desorption and displacement kinetics of hydrocarbon gas mixtures onto a commercial activated carbon were measured on a differential adsorber bed (DAB) rig for adsorbent pellets with different sizes, geometries, and under various operating conditions. These experimental results were employed to examine the predictive capability of the model. It is demonstrated that, with the structural, equilibria and kinetics of parameters obtained from the related pure component systems, the model predictions for adsorption kinetics of multicomponent systems generally show good agreement with experimental data, except for desorption kinetics on small cylindrical pellets where some deviations have been observed.