The absorption-desorption characteristics towards hydrogen of obtained by ball milling under argon atmosphere magnesium based composites (containing respectively 95 wt% Mg and 5 wt% activated carbon (AC) derived from bean pods (BP), apricot stones (AS) and mixture of coal tar pitch and furfural (CTPF)), were investigated. Actually there is no substantial difference between the rate of hydriding and the absorption capacity for magnesium composite with AC derived from apricot stones, and for magnesium composite with AC derived from a mixture of coal tar pitch and furfural - the capacity is 613 wt% for the former and 5.98 wt% for the latter. More significant difference between the investigated composites was observed for the dehydriding process. The magnesium composite with synthetic carbon (from furfural and coal tar pitch) desorbs at 623 K and 0.15 MPa and the absorbed hydrogen about twice faster than magnesium composite with AC from bean pods. The activated carbon derived from a mixture of coal tar pitch and furfural has the highest specific surface area, and obviously this characteristic has important influence especially on the dehydriding kinetics of magnesium. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.