Abstract: Granular crosslinked sodium polyacrylate (gc-PAANa) gel was prepared by reverse suspension polymerization and characterized by SEM, FT-IR and TGA, and its swelling ratio was also measured. Moreover, this gc-PAANa gel was used for Pb²⁺ adsorption from aqueous solutions. The experimental results indicate that the gc-PAANa gel has excellent Pb²⁺ adsorption performance in the pH range of 3.0~5.0, and the presence of Ca²⁺ or Mg²⁺ (0.02~0.1 mol·L^-1) has no obvious effect on the Pb²⁺ adsorption. More than 95% Pb²⁺ can be removed from wastewater when the initial Pb²⁺ concentration is below 350 mg·L^-1. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms of Pb²⁺ on gc-PAANa gel follow pseudo-second order model and Langmuir model, respectively. The maximum Pb²⁺ adsorption capacity is 446.98 mg·g^-1 at 293 K. The adsorption thermodynamic analysis reveals that Pb²⁺ adsorption on gc-PAANa gel is a spontaneous and exothermic process. Furthermore, adsorption mechanism analysis by XPS indicates that Pb²⁺ adsorption is mainly attributed to the chelation of -COO^- with Pb²⁺. 5 cycles of adsorption-desorption results suggest that the gc-PAANa gel possesses good reusability for the treatment of Pb²⁺ wastewater.