Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic of methylene blue (MB) onto natural zeolite was studied in a batch system. Variables of the system include contact time, pH, salt concentration, temperature, and initial MB concentration. The increase in temperature resulted in a higher MB loading per unit weight of the zeolite. Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson, Koble-Corrigan and Temkin isotherm models were applied to experimental equilibrium data of MB adsorption depending on temperature. The effect of contact time at different temperatures and initial concentration were fitted to pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Linear regressive method and nonlinear regressive method were used to obtain the relative parameters. The error analysis was conducted to find whether linear method or nonlinear method was better to predict the experimental results and which model was better to fit the experimental data. Both methods were suitable to obtain the parameters. The Redlich-Peterson equation was best to fit the equilibrium data. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model can be used to describe the adsorption behavior. The nonlinear method may be better with the absolute error as limited condition. The adsorption process was spontaneous and endothermic. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.