Abstract: Aiming at effective, economical and environmentally friendly purification of copper-containing wastewater, based on new in-situ synthesis method, a polycarboxylate gel-alkali composite water-purification material is prepared for the ‘renewable’ treatment of copper-containing wastewater. A ring-opening cross-linking polycarboxylate gel skeleton (ROPCG) is established through a new reaction process of ‘pre-polymerization and crosslinking’ using a reactive heterocyclic cationic monomer (DHAC) and acrylic acid (AA) as the basic raw materials. At the same time, an in-situ coating effect is created for 100% coating of NaOH in the solution system and an efficient ROPCG-NaOH composite water purification material is obtained. The results show that for copper-containing wastewater treatment, the unit mass of ROPCG-NaOH composite water purification material can eliminate divalent copper ions with a mass of 384.62 mg/g, with a better water purification effect than that of the initial products. In addition, the waste residue of ROPCG-NaOH composite water purification material can be regenerated into ROPCG adsorbent. The copper adsorption capacity of the regenerated ROPCG adsorbent is 276.24 mg/g, which is similar to that of the initial ROPCG skeleton (286.53 mg/g), and the repeated regeneration rate is 99.47%. In conclusion, ROPCG-NaOH composite water purification material will provide an efficient, economic, green and ‘renewable’ treatment of copper ions in wastewater, and can be applied in practice in the future.