high-sulfur anthracite generates a large amount of sulfur oxides during combustion, causing serious damage to the atmosphericenvironment. It is necessary to seek a path for its development from traditional fuel to high-end materials with increasingly strict environmental requirements. Due to the lack of technical indicators for the preparation and application of activated carbon in specific fields, thepreparation goals are unclear, and the targeted preparation of activated carbon is an urgent issue to be addressed. In this study, two typesof activated carbon with specific surface areas of 1 066.42 m2 / g (AC-1)and 1 568.79 m2 / g (AC-2)were obtained by using high-sulfursmokeless coal from Jincheng area, prepared by physical activation and phosphoric acid impregnation. Characterization was performedusing FTIR, XPS, SEM, and other methods. The results show that the mesopore volume of AC-1 is 1.688 nm, while that of AC-2 is0.718 nm, indicating that the former has a more developed mesoporous structure. The adsorption performance of two activated carbonsusing Cu2+ as the adsorbate was studied. The results indicate that the adsorption performance of AC-1 is significantly superior to that ofAC-2, and the adsorption behavior is jointly determined by pore size distribution and surface functional group content. The optimal adsorption conditions are found to be pH= 4, temperature at 35 ℃ , activated carbon dosage of 0.30 g, and adsorption time of 2 hours. Kineticstudies reveal that the adsorption process of both activated carbons for Cu2+ is chemisorption rather than intraparticle diffusion-controlled.The fitting results of the adsorption isotherms indicate that the Langmuir isotherm model is not applicable to AC-2, possibly due to its predominance of physical adsorption. In this study, the influence of pore distribution and surface functional group content on the adsorptionperformance was discussed, providing guidance for the targeted preparation of activated carbon with good water-phase heavy metal ion removal capability from high-sulfur smokeless coal.