Polymer-supported hydrous iron oxides (HFOs) are promising for heavy metals removal from aqueous systems. The ubiquitous inorganic ligands, e.g., sulfate, are expected to exert considerable impacts on pollutants removal by these hybrid sorbents. Herein, we obtained a hybrid sorbent HFO-PS by encapsulating nanosized HFO into macroporous polystyrene (PS) resin. Both batch and column sorption experiments of Cu(II) by HFO-PS were carried out in the presence of sulfate. Obviously, the presence of sulfate is favorable for Cu(II) sorption onto HFO-PS. The performances of column Cu(II) removal were fitted and predicted with Adams-Bohart, Clark, Thomas and BDST models. Thomas model is suggested best-fit to predict the breakthrough curves. Besides, a linear correlation is observed between breakthrough time and column length based on BDST model, which might be useful for predicting the breakthrough time for Cu(II) removal by HFO-PS. (C) 2017 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.