This study was carried out to test the ability of a mixture of sand, cement and clay for immobilizing cadmium ions from leaching out into water resources. Various samples with different mass ratios for this mixture were tested to determine their efficiency for adsorbing cadmium. The compressive test, cation exchange capacity (CEC), adsorption equilibrium and leaching test were applied to each sample. The sample that showed the highest cation exchange capacity with 53.1 meq/100 g and compressive strength with 11.05 N/mm(2) consists of 25% sand, 50% cement and 25% clay. The equilibrium data for Cd2+ removal using this sample showed a multilayer adsorption, which could be fitted using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller adsorption isotherm model with a regression coefficient of 0.999. The maximum cadmium uptake obtained from this model was 82.618 mg/g solid. The mobility of Cd2+, in acidic solution drawn-off after 18 It of initial mixing was 66.06 mg when the solid sample initially contains 6.0 g Cd2+. This value decreased to 14.33 mg when only 1.0 g Cd2+, was initially spiked in the sample. Introducing clay into this sample enhanced its sorption capacity while the presence of sand and cement enhanced its compressive strength. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.