the triethylenetetramine functionalized microspheres were prepared and fixed in the column for the investigation of copper ion fixed-bed column adsorption, with various operation conditions.The breakthrough point of the column adsorption was significantly influenced by the initial concentration of copper ions, the solution ionic strength and the column bed length.For a binary solution system where both copper and zinc ions were present, an overshoot of zinc ion effluent concentrations was clearly observed, due to the competitive adsorption phenomenon in the fixed-bed column where the earlier adsorbed zinc ions were replaced with the incoming copper ions.Nitric acid was used for the desorption and regeneration of the fixed-bed column for re-use applications.