One of the most important applications of chelating and functional polymers is their capability to recover metal ions from their solutions. This study concerns the synthesis of a hydrophilic glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) monomer-bearing diethanol amine (DEA) chelating group from the reaction of GMA and DEA. The formed adduct (A) was characterized via FTIR and mass spectra and subjected to homopolymerization and binary copolymerization with ethyl methacrylate and butyl methacrylate. The copolymerization process was carried out via a semi-batch emulsion polymerization technique by using potassium persulphate/sodium bisulphite as a redox pair initiation system and sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate as an emulsifier at 65 degrees C. The obtained polymers were characterized via FTIR, thermal gravimetric analysis, and UV-VIS. Volume-average diameters (D-v) in nanoscale range for the prepared polymers were confirmed by transmission electron microscope investigation. It was shown that the obtained nano-size chelating polymers have a powerful adsorption character toward transition metal ions (Cu+2, Cr+3, Ni+2, and Co+2) and efficient selectivity for Cu+2 and Ni+2 ions at normal pH. The effects of pH, time, and different comonomer feed compositions on the uptake of metal ions were studied. The reaction between the obtained chelating resins and different metal ions was confirmed to be a second-order reaction. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 115: 3063-3073, 2010