It is imperative to remove the toxic selenium compounds selenite and selenate from waste water before releasing to the environment. In this study, a functionalized regenerable cellulose, based on the chemical modification of cellulose grafted thiomalic acid (TMA-C), was prepared simply with an efficient methodology for removing and recovering selenium(IV) effectively. Optimization of the TMA-C synthesis was carried out at different temperatures, different molar ratios, and dosage of catalyst using response surface methodology. The surface functionalization effect was detected with FTIR, SEM, zeta potential, EDS and TGA technique. And under optimum adsorption conditions (pH=4.5, T = 318 K), TMA-C can remove toxic selenium compounds more than 99.9%, and have high adsorption capacity for Se(IV), which is 101.2 mg/g. The adsorption isotherms data fitted the Langmuir model well, and pseudo-second-order kinetics showed better accordance. In addition, in the batch desorption experiments, the TMA-C could be regenerated completely with 3.0 mol/L HCl and 2% KClO3 solutions. Finally regenerable cellulose microcolumn-UV-spectrophotometry was developed for effective and economic determination of trace Se(IV). (C) 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.