Lignin-based aromatic aldehydes (p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillaldehyde and syringaldehyde) have wide applications in flavoring. However, their separation using chromatographic methods has not been explored. We studied the adsorption and desorption behaviors of aromatic aldehydes on macroporous resins and four macroporous resins X-5, CAD-40, AB-8 and D101 were screened for separation of aromatic aldehydes. The results demonstrated that X-5 showed the highest adsorption and desorption capacities. The adsorption capacities for p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillaldehyde and syringaldehyde on X-5 were 33.5mg/g, 46.6mg/g and 47.0mg/g at 20 oC, respectively, higher than that of CAD-40, AB-8 and D101. Adsorption isotherms of aromatic aldehydes on X-5 were confirmed to fit to Freundlich equation which was calculated by lnQe=0.6933lnCe+6.788, lnQe=0.7031lnCe+7.7358 and lnQe=0.7107lnCe+8.2412 for p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillaldehyde and syringaldehyde, respectively. The results of dynamic adsorption and desorption experiments demonstrated that 50% (v/v) ethanol solution was an effective elution solvent for aromatic aldehydes. The maximum concentration of the three kinds of aromatic aldehydes in eluent reached 3.74 g/L, 5.44 g/L and 7.03 g/L, which indicated that the elution process was also an effective enrichment process for sorbate.