The invention discloses a method for adsorbing and separating p-
cresol and m-
cresol. The method comprises the following steps: feeding a mixture of p-
cresol and m-cresol into an adsorption zone of a liquid-phase
simulated moving bed to be in contact with an adsorbent, wherein the p-cresol is adsorbed by the adsorbent while the m-cresol is not adsorbed; extracting the liquid as
raffinate, introducing a
desorption agent into the adsorbent for desorbing the adsorption components and obtaining an extract liquid; wherein the liquid-phase
simulated moving bed comprises the following four functionalareas: a first functional area, a second functional area and a third functional area, a
desorption zone, a purification zone, an adsorption zone and a
buffer zone, the temperature of feeding an adsorption
raw material into the adsorption area is 100-230 DEG C; the temperature of feeding a
desorption agent into the desorption area is 120-250 DEG C; the temperature of the desorption agent introducedinto the desorption area is controlled to be 10-100 DEG C higher than the temperature of the adsorption
raw material introduced into the adsorption area; the
active component of the adsorbent is selected from any one of BaX, BaKX and KY molecular sieves, and the desorption agent is a mixture of 30-96% by
mass of C3-C5
fatty alcohol and 4-70% by
mass of C7-C9
alkane. The method is used for adsorbing and separating a mixture of p-cresol and m-cresol, and high-purity p-cresol and m-cresol products can be respectively obtained.