Groundwater contamination with fluoride (f-) is a major concern due to its chronic behavior on human health. in india, groundwater contamination by f- is reported in more than 16 states. amongst them, specific region of rajasthan, gujarat, telangana and andhra pradesh are severely affected by f- contamination. to address this issue several studies have focused on adsorption, reverse osmosis, ion exchange and electrocoagulation. however, still there is a need to investigate for cost effective, efficient and environmental friendly technology focused primarily on f- removal from groundwater. there are only a few studies available that focus on removal of f- from natural groundwater. therefore, to address this issue, several groundwater samples were collected from the nagaur district of rajasthan and with an objective to remove f- from the groundwater samples using a novel composite (ac-ce). in this study, cerium metal was impregnated within granular activated carbon (ac-ce) to increase its adsorption capacity. the study suggests impregnation of ce in ac has enhanced the fluoride sorption efficiency significantly (0.27 mg/g to 2.9 mg/g). sorption of f- and along with ion-exchange between nitrate and f- are attributed to high f- removal by the ac-ce composite. the performance of the composite within a 1-d fixed bed column was studied to investigate the suitability of applying the composite in a filter. effects of co-ions are also evaluated on fluoride removal by the composite. the result suggests, ac-ce composite can be suitably embedded in fixed bed column as a filter media, which can treat up to 722 ml of 10 mg/l f- contaminated water. however, performance of composite reduces significantly in natural groundwater. this is due to presence of phosphate and bicarbonate ions competing with f- for active sites on the composite. suitable pretreatment method should be adopted for addressing this problem.