Abstract: To study the adsorption of Congo red by carbonized materials obtained from waste tobacco stalks, the effects of pH, dosage of carbonized tobacco stalks, reaction time and initial concentration of Congo red on the adsorption parameters were investigated. The adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics as well as the morphological characteristics of carbonized tobacco stalks were analyzed. The results showed that: 1) When the initial concentration of Congo red was 200 mg/L, the adsorption capacity reached 82.12 mg/g; and the removal rate of Congo red was up to 82.1% at the carbonized tobacco stalk dosage of 2 g/L. 2) After three regeneration cycles using 0.01 mol/L NaOH, the regeneration properties of carbonized tobacco stalks still achieved the adsorption capacity of 55.37 mg/g to Congo red. 3) The kinetics results indicated that the adsorption process was consistent with the second-order kinetic model. 4) The results of SEM, XRD and FT-IR tests suggested that the increase of specific surface area, abundant microporous structure and abundant hydroxyl and sulfonic groups on the surface of carbonized tobacco stalks were the main reasons for their good adsorption performance.