Removing excess phosphorus is a highly effective method to prevent eutrophication in contaminated water.However, the design and preparation of an efficient biosorbent for phosphate capture is still a great challenge. We fabricated a novel, and inexpensive nano-biosorbent, L-NH 2 @Ce, by loading cerium oxide nanoparticles (nano-CeO 2 ) within the aminated lignin using a facile in situ precipitation approach for efficient phosphate removal. The as-designed nano-biosorbent L-NH 2 @Ce exhibited a BET surface area (S BET ) of 89.8 m 2 g À1 , 3 times that of lignin, and a pore volume (V p ) of 0.23 cm 3 g À1 . Owing to these results, the adsorption capacity of L-NH 2 @Ce increased by 14-fold to 27.86 mg g À1 compared with lignin (1.92 mg g À1 ). Moreover, the L-NH 2 @Ce can quickly reduce a high phosphate concentration of 10 ppm to well below the discharge standard of 0.5 ppm recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking water. Importantly, a study of leaching tests indicated the negligible risk of Ce ion leakage during phosphate adsorption over the wide pH range of 4-9. Moreover, L-NH 2 @Ce exhibits good reusability and retains 90% of removal efficiency after two adsorption-desorption cycles.The environmentally benignity of the raw material, the simple preparation process, and the high stability and reusability makes L-NH 2 @Ce a promising nano-biosorbent for phosphate removal. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: The phosphate adsorption capacity of L-NH 2 @Ce in comparison with some biosorbents. See Fig. 3 (a) Adsorption kinetics of phosphate on L-NH 2 @Ce, and fitting results for (b) pseudo-second-order model and (c) pseudo-first-order model on L-NH 2 @Ce. 1254 | RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 1249-1260 This journal is