This paper investigated the copper (Cu) ion desorption performance from the Cu-ion adsorbed triethylenetetramine-functionalized polymeric adsorbents (P-TETA). The influencing factors including desorption agent, desorption acid concentration and solid-to-liquid (S/L) ratio were investigated. It was found that nitric acid and hydrochloric acid (as different desorption agents) gave almost identical high desorption efficiencies. In addition, higher concentration of nitric acid may not result in higher desorption efficiency, and the best desorption efficiency (about 95%) for P-TETA was achieved by 0.25 mol/L nitric acid. Furthermore, the desorption efficiencies with the four selected S/L ratios were all of high value and showed almost no difference. The Cu ion desorption kinetics of Cu-ion adsorbed P-TETA was found to be extremely fast and more than 85% of the desorption efficiency was achieved within 4 minutes. Six cycles of adsorption-desorption-adsorption showed only a slightly decrease in both the Cu ion adsorption capacity and Cu ion desorption efficiency for P-TETA adsorbents.