Phosphorus removal was a crucial aspect in controlling eutrophication problem of water pollution. Zirconium oxide was a suitable adsorbent for phosphate removal due to its good adsorption efficiency, but it suffered from the separation inconvenience. In this paper, magnetic Fe-Zr binary oxide was synthesized and used as adsorbent for removing phosphate from aqueous solution. The adsorbent was characterized by energy dispersive analysis system of X-ray, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared spectrum (IR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis and BET surface area measurements. The results showed that kinetic data followed a pseudo-second-order model and equilibrium data were well fitted by the Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption capacity was 13.65 mg P/g at pH 4. The adsorption mechanism was mainly derived from ion-exchange of zirconium species and partly originated from magnetite species of Fe-Zr binary oxide. The main advantages of magnetic Fe-Zr binary oxide adsorbent consisted in its separation convenience and highly efficient reusability compared to the other adsorbents. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.