Adsorption of palladium and platinum ions at the trace amounts onto radiation crosslinked carboxymethylchitin (CMCht) and carboxymethylchitosan (CMChts) has been investigated. Maximum adsorption capacities for palladium were 2.679 and 1.053 mg/g dry gel, whereas for platinum they were 2.513 and 1.155 mg/dry gel for CMCht and CMChts, respectively. Retention capacity values for palladium were 0.45 and 0.06; for platinum 0.25 and 0.11 mEquiv. / g for CMCht and CMChts, correspondingly. It has been shown that adsorption of I'd and Pt ions onto both hydrogels were dependent on the chloric and nitric ions concentration. Desorption experiments in HCl and HNO3 solutions proved that adsorption is governed by chelating mechanism rather than ion-exchange one. SEM-EDX spectroscopy showed that palladium and platinum ions were homogeneously distributed in all sections of hydrogel matrix. DSC experiments demonstrated decreasing in the decomposition temperature of polymers after inclusion of palladium and platinum ions, suggesting that metals are causing lowering of stability in polymer structural integrity. (C) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.