AbstractPharmaceutical compounds present in liquid effluents have great environmental impact. Thus, the development of alternative adsorbent materials from agro‐industrial activities has received attention. This work aimed to adsorb ibuprofen onto activated carbon from olive pomace and evaluate the parameters of the adsorption system. The experiments were performed in batch and continuous flow. The mathematical models that best described the experimental data were the pseudo‐second‐order and Langmuir models for kinetic and isothermal studies. The fixed bed experiments showed a good fit for the Thomas model.