BACKGROUND: Copper plays a leading role in the electronics industry. Drastic innovation and fast obsolescence rate raise the demand for copper for electrical and electronic equipment. The high amount of electronic waste discarded is considered the primary alternative source and is now seen as a secondary reservoir for copper metal. Besides the economic impact, copper interferes with selective recovery of other metals such as critical, precious and rare earth elements from electronic waste. RESULTS: In this work, to purify acid leach solution of electronic waste from Cu(II) ions, a selective sorbent was synthesized. A Cu(II) specified ligand, ⊍-benzoinoxime, was impregnated with magnetic nanoparticle-modified activated carbon and utilized as magnetic solid-phase sorbent. The synthesized sorbent was analysed for its morphological and other characteristic properties.CONCLUSION: The study indicates that percent recovery increased from 89% to >95% after impregnation. Complexation between Cu(II) and ⊍-benzoinoxime-modified activated carbon caused the sorbent to attain higher retention at pH > 8.5. Sorption capacity calculated from Langmuir sorption isotherm was 147 mg g −1 , while the sorption process follows a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The sorbed Cu(II) was quantitatively (>97%) eluted with 1 mol L −1 nitric acid. The method was validated with standard reference material GF10928752-Aldrich. Results show that the synthesized sorbent is good for Cu(II) masking and recovery, even if applied to samples with a complex sample matrix.