Recent research highlights RNA’s therapeutic potential in nucleic acid-based therapies. However, effective RNA recovery and purification remain challenging due to similar impurities affecting therapeutic outcomes. Traditional RNA isolation methods are often slow, inefficient, and involve toxic reagents. Carbon-based materials offer a promising alternative as adsorbents for nucleic acids due to their excellent mechanical and chemical properties. This study describes an efficient, simple, and cost-effective method for RNA recovery from complex Escherichia coli extracts using carbon materials with different structures and surface modifications. RNA adsorption and desorption screening experiments were performed using different carbon materials. N-doped CNTs (CNT-N-ox) and carbon nanofibers (CNF-ox), both oxidized with HNO3, showed RNA adsorption capacities of 42 % and 55 %, respectively, also allowing effective RNA desorption (81 % and 72 %, respectively). Additionally, the materials demonstrated reusability, maintaining RNA adsorption capacity over four cycles. The selectivity of the materials enabled a simple method to recover RNA free from DNA contamination by performing three consecutive cycles. Moreover, no contaminating protein was found in the recovered sample. The analysis by circular dichroism also revealed that RNA maintained its integrity and stability when recovered from these materials. Overall, the study demonstrates the potential of carbon materials for efficient RNA capture and pre-purification.