Crude oil pollution is a serious problem that causes severe damage to the environment. The adsorption process by using one of the adsorbents is considered one of the most important and successful methods for getting rid and removing crude oil from the water. In this study, activated carbon was used as a sorbent to clean the water from crude oil. This use of activated carbon is new. Adsorption parameters tested included the contact time on adsorption, sorbent dosage, the impact of pH, and temperature. The removal of crude oil from water by activated carbon was investigated by batch adsorption after varying contact time (5–30 min), adsorbent dosage (5–50 g), pH (2–11), and temperature (10–50 0C). hydrophobicity of carbon has increased very significantly due to the modification that was made on carbon, and this, in turn, led to the creation of a sorbent with a very high ability to remove crude oil from the water and thus increase the adsorption capacity. As the results of the study show that the highest value of adsorption capacity was 96% at contact time 20 min, sorbent dosage (25 g), pH (7), and temperature (30 0C). The prepared adsorbent showed the potential to use as a low-cost adsorbent in oil-spill clean-up.