Application of saw dust for the removal of an anionic dye, tartrazine, from aqueous solutions has been investigated. The experiments were carried out in batch mode. Effect of the parameters such as pH, initial dye concentration and temperature on the removal of the dye was studied. Equilibrium was achieved in 70min. Maximum adsorption of dye was achieved at pH 3. Removal percent was found to be dependent on the initial concentration of dye solution, and maximum removal was found to be 97% at 1mg/L of tartrazine. The removal increases from 71% to 97% when the initial concentration of dye solution decreases from 15mg/L to 1mg/L. The equilibrium adsorption data were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin–Radushkevich isotherm models. The (Langmuir) adsorption capacity of the adsorbent is found to be 4.71mg/g at 318K. Kinetic modeling of the process of removal was carried out and the process of removal was found to follow a pseudo second order model and the value of rate constant for adsorption process was calculated as 2.7×10−3gmg−1min−1 at 318K. The thermodynamic parameters such as change in free energy (ΔG°), enthalpy (ΔH°) and entropy (ΔS°) were determined and the negative values of ΔG° indicated that the process of removal was spontaneous at all values of temperatures. Further, the values of ΔH° indicated the endothermic nature of the process of removal