Coconut pith (CP), which is abundantly available and cheap, has the potential of being used as low-cost adsorbents for elemental mercury removal. In this study, the preparation of chars was carried out through the carbonization of CP at three different environment conditions: (a) open reactor under nitrogen flow; (b) closed reactor under nitrogen environment; and (c) closed reactor under ambient environment; at the temperature of 700 °C. The results show that the chemical, physical, morphological and spectral properties of the adsorbents greatly influenced by the environment of carbonization used. The highest Hgo adsorption capacity was observed for CCA700 (2395.98 μg/g), followed by CCN700 (2052.49 μg/g), and CFN700 (1416.92 μg/g). These results demonstrated that coconut pith derived chars could be potential as low-cost adsorbent alternatives for the removal of elemental mercury in gas streams. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.