Ashes of leaves of Phyllanthus niruri , Annona squamosa , Calotropis gigantean, Tridax procumbens , Morinda tinctoria and Azadirachta indica have shown strong affinity towards ammonia .The sorption properties of these biomaterials in effecting the removal of ammonia in polluted waters have been explored by optimizing the various physicochemical parameters such as pH, time of equilibration and sorbent concentration. More than 87% removal of ammonia has been observed with these sorbents at pH: 5 and at optimum conditions of time of equilibration and sorbent concentration. The interference of anions like Chlorides, Fluorides, Sulphate, Phosphate and Carbonates, is marginal while cations like Ca2+, Cu2+, Zn2+and Mg2+ interfere to some extent but, however, the % of extractability of ammonia has never come down 70.0%. The methodologies developed in this work for the removal of ammonia are applied to diverse samples collected from industrial effluents and polluted lakes and it is found that the procedures are remarkably successful.