Large amounts of organic contaminants enter the environment along with industrial and agricultural production activities,most of which could be adsorbed on natural or artificial carbon-based materials.In addition to the apparent non-ideal adsorption behavior,queries such as the coexistence of numerous adsorption mecha-nisms under the complex impact of environmental factors have been a hot topic in the environmental field for many years.The combination of theoretical calculation and experimental study can effectively explore the influ-ence of the structure of carbon-based materials on their adsorption of organic pollutants and explain the adsorp-tion mechanism from the microscopic perspective.The two-dimensional plane,three-dimensional pore and ma-trix of carbon-based particles are described by theoretical calculation,which provides more comprehensive infor-mation for understanding the process and mechanism of adsorption of organic pollutants by carbon-based materi-als.Based on the physicochemical properties and structure of carbon-based materials,this paper summarizes the mechanism and process of adsorption of organic contaminants by natural and artificial carbon-based materials and describes the effects of physicochemical properties of carbon-based materials(element composition,func-tional group type,pH value and surface charge properties)on their adsorption of organic pollutants.The mecha-nism and process of adsorption of organic contaminants by carbon-based materials under the mediation of two-dimensional(focusing on the plane structure of carbon-based materials)and three-dimensional structures(fo-cusing on the internal pore structure and aggregate of carbon-based materials)are analyzed.Finally,the pros-pects for describing the process of organic pollutant adsorption by carbon-based materials more accurately are proposed.The intensive study will provide a theoretical basis for fully understanding organic pollutants'environ-mental behavior and advancing practical engineering applications for carbon-based materials.