We employed two polar monomers, triallyl isocyanurate (TALC) and butyl acrylate (BA), to copolymerize with divinylbenzene (DVB), and synthesized two starting copolymers labeled PDT and PDB. Then, the Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction was performed for the two starting copolymers, and the residual pendent vinyl groups were consumed, and hence we obtained two novel polar-modified post-cross-linked resins PDTpc and PDBpc. The surface polarity greatly improved due to introduction of the polar monomers, and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and pore volume significantly increased after the Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction. Compared with the starting copolymers, the non-polar post-cross linked resin PDVBpc and some other adsorbents in the references, PDTpc and PDBpc possessed a much enhanced adsorption to Rhodamine B, and the equilibrium capacity reached 578.2 mg/g and 328.7 mg/g, respectively, at an equilibrium concentration of 100 mg/L, and the Freundlich model characterized the equilibrium data very well. The adsorption was a fast process and the kinetic data obeyed the micropore diffusion model. These results confirmed that PDTpc and PDBpc had the potential superiority in adsorptive removal of Rhodamine B from aqueous solution. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.