A series of methylamine-modified hyper-cross-linked resins were fabricated from chloromethylated polystrene-co-divinylbenzene by two continuous reactions (Friedel-Crafts alkylation and amination). the Bet surface area and pore volume of the as-prepared resins took a positive correlation to the reaction time and temperature during alkylation reaction while lessened during amination process. When running batch adsorption experiments for adsorption of citric acid, the methylamine-modified resin named HM-65-2 showed higher adsorption capacity of 136.3 mg/g and selectivity of 6.98 (citric/ glucose) than the precursor resins. The pseudo-second-order rate model fitted better than the pseudo-first-order model, implying the adsorption sites distributed on the resins surface tended to be heterogeneous. Subsequently, the interactions between citric acid and the resin were investigated by means of molecular simulation. Simulation result showed the addition of nitrogen-containing groups significantly enhanced the adsorption performance of citric acid. Lastly, the dynamic column experiments were performed to obtain the suitable operating conditions for the citric acid adsorption. Citric acid (CA, 2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid, C 6 H 8 O 7), as an important organic acid associated with thermoplastics fields in virtue of versatility, plays multiple roles in food, pharmaceutical, chemical or bio-processing industry etc. due to its favorable physico-chemical properties 1. Citric acid is mainly manufactured by the fermentation of carbohydrates by Aspergillus niger using submerged processes, which is relatively easy to achieve high yield and environmental friendly product 2. However, the recovery of citric acid from the fermentation broth is not straightforward. The conventional separation technique used in industry includes several batch steps increasing the production cost and generating a considerable amount of environmentally harmful waste 3. Some novel separation techniques, i.e., solvent extraction 4 , electro-dialysis 5 , membrane separation 6 , ion exchange 7 and adsorption 8 have been proposed for citric acid recovery and purification, among which adsorption has been considered to be one of the most efficient and simple method due to its wide application scope, energy-saving, and environmentally friendly. Most adsorbents selected for recovering citric acid are based on weak-base ion-exchangers 9 , which needs some harsh desorption conditions i.e. alkaline solutions and limits its practical application. Gluszcz et al. 10 studied the adsorption behaviors of different ion exchange resins for citric acid recovery from aqueous solutions and ascertained that the resin with a tertiary amine functional group was suitable for citric acid recovery. Juang et al. 11 explored the adsorption behaviors of citric acid on macroporous resins impregnated with tri-n-octylamine. Other adsorbents including hydroxyapatite 12 , oxides 13 and chitosan