Sugar beet distillery vinasse is rich in betaine but the recovery of betaine by ionic exchange first requires removing ethanol-insoluble compounds as well as dark coloured and polyphenolic compounds. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms of the latter compounds were studied on two commercial activated carbons. The results show that the pseudo-second order kinetic model provided the best correlation, and the Langmuir model was selected for describing the isotherms. The data can be used to conduct experiments with a view to applying the crosscurrent process methodology to determine the number of stages necessary for the discolouration of the solution. (c) 2011 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering