This research work is concerned with the applicability of sodium hydroxide-activated carbon prepared from Jatropha curcas seed coats and Terminalia catappa seed coats in theremoval of p-phenylenediamine (PPD), a component of hair dye industrial effluent. The surfacecharacteristics of the prepared activated carbons were examined using Scanning ElectronMicroscopy (SEM), Brunauer- Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis and Fourier TransformInfrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The influence of various factors such as initial concentration, pH,contact time, adsorbent dose and temperature were studied and the p-phenylenediamineadsorption capacity was found to be 32.4 mg/g and 45.5 mg/g for Jatropha activated carbon(JAC) and Terminalia activated carbon (TAC), respectively. The experimental data wereanalysed using Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms. The data could befitted successfully for both systems by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The data showalso that the sorption process is exothermic and that it follows pseudo second order kinetics.