Spherical mesoporous carbons (SMC) were successfully synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using ferrocene as the carbon precursor and colloidal silica arrays as templates. The structure and textural properties of SMCs were characterized by a variety of techniques. Accordingly, a possible formation mechanism was proposed. These SMC materials were found to exhibit extraordinary high adsorption capacities (ca. 100 mu mol/g) for lysozyme (Lz) in solution with a pH value of 11 close to its isoelectric point. The correlations between the textural parameters of SMCs with Lz adsorption capacity were also investigated along with discussion on its adsorption kinetics and stability. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.