Considering the very high cost of acquiring cyanotoxins, the extreme toxicity, and the reported similarity between the adsorption pattern of cyanotoxin and orange II sodium salt dye, the dye was used as a surrogate adsorbate (SA) to evaluate the potential of locally sourced pyrogenic carbonaceous material as an adsorbent for cyanotoxin capture from drinking water. Charcoal was modified using piranha solution and then evaluated in a batch system to remove the SA. The temporal adsorption profiles showed that the magnitude of SA adsorbed and the attainment of equilibrium time depended on the initial SA concentration. The possible occurrence of chemisorption or ion exchange was proven. The SA adsorption was not influenced by the solution pH and ionic strength. The SA adsorption boosted the % transmittance of the infrared peaks and caused a diminution in the intensity of the respective functional groups on the XPS spectra.