The templated crosslinked-chitosan microparticles prepared using the imprinting method with the Remazol Black5 (RB5) dye as a template, epichlorohydrin (ECH) as a crosslinker, and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution used for the microparticle formation showed the highest adsorption capacity for the RB5 dye compared with those that used other methods with or without a template, three crosslinkers, and two microparticle formations. The results showed that the adsorption of the RB5 dye on the microparticles was affected by the microparticle size, the initial dye concentration, the initial pH value, as well as the temperature. Both kinetics and thermodynamic parameters of the adsorption process were estimated. These data indicated an exothermic spontaneous adsorption process that kinetically followed the second-order adsorption process. Equilibrium experiments fitted well the Langmuir isotherm model, and the maximum monolayer adsorption capacity for the RB5 dye was 2941 mg/g. The competition study showed that the adsorption of the RB5 dye on the microparticles in the mixture solution was much less affected by the existence of the 3R dye than the other way around. Furthermore, the microparticles could be regenerated through the desorption of the dye in pH 10.0 of NaOH solution and could be reused to adsorb the dye again. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.