Abstract
The study aimed to produce activated carbon by gradual heating to about 550°C for 4hr. The mixture consist of 1:2 ( residual petroleum: sodium hydroxide) The residual petroleum used was the atmospheric residual from Hammam AL-AIil in the northen of Iraq. The prepared activated carbon gives good results for the adsorption of iodine No. and methylene blue in comparson to synthetic carbon . Another characters for activated carbon were studied like ash content and density.