Functionalised SBA-15 mesoporous silica with polyamidoamine groups (PAMAM-SBA-15) was successfully prepared with the structure characterised by X-ray diffraction, nitrogen adsorptiondesorption, Fourier transform infrared spectra and thermogravimetric analysis. PAMAM-SBA-15 was applied as adsorbent for Cu(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions removal from aqueous solution. The effects of the solution pH, adsorbent dosage and metal ion concentration were studied under the batch mode. The Langmuir model was fitted favourably to the experimental data. The maximum sorptive capacities were determined to be 1.74mmolg1 for Cu(II), 1.16mmolg1 for Pb(II) and 0.97mmolg1 for Cd(II). The overall sorption process was fast and its kinetics was fitted well to a pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The mean free energy of sorption, calculated from the DubininRadushkevich isotherm, indicated that the sorption of lead and copper, with E>16kJmol1, followed the sorption mechanism by particle diffusion. The adsorbent could be regenerated three times without significant varying its sorption capacity. A series of column tests were performed to determine the breakthrough curves with varying bed heights and flow rates. The breakthrough data gave a good fit to the Thomas model. Maximum sorption capacity of 1.6, 1.3 and 1.0mmolg1 were found for Cu(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II), respectively, at flow rate of 0.4mLmin1 and bed height of 8cm, which corresponds to 83%, 75% and 73% of metallic ion removal, respectively, which very close to the value determined in the batch process. Bed depth service time model could describe the breakthrough data from the column experiments properly. (c) 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering