This work reports the synthesis of pyridyltriazol-functionalized UiO-66 (UiO stands for University of Oslo), namely UiO-66-Pyta, from UiO-66-NH 2 through three post-synthetic modification (PSM) steps. The good performance of the material derives from the observation that partial formylation (~21% of -NHCHO groups) of H 2 BDC-NH 2 by DMF, as persistent impurity, takes place during synthesis of the UiO-66-NH 2 . Thus, to enhance material performance, firstly, the as-synthesized UiO-66-NH 2 was deformylated to give pure UiO-66-NH 2 . Subsequently, the pure UiO-66-NH 2 was converted to UiO-66-N 3 with nearly complete conversion (~95 %). Finally, the azide-alkyne[3+2]-cycloaddition reaction of 2-ethynylpyridine with the UiO-66-N 3 gave the UiO-66-Pyta. The porous MOF was then applied for the solidphase extraction of palladium ions from aqueous medium. Affecting parameters on extraction efficiency of Pd(II) ions were also investigated and optimized. Interestingly, UiO-66-Pyta exhibited selective and superior adsorption capacity for Pd(II) with maximum sorption capacity of 294.1 mg g -1 at acidic pH (4.5). The limit of detection (LOD) was found to be 1.9 µg L -1 . The estimated intra-day and inter-day precisions are 3.6% and 1.7%, respectively. Moreover, the adsorbent was regenerated and reused for 5 cycles without any significant change in the capacity and repeatability. The adsorption mechanism was described based on various techniques such as FT-IR, PXRD, SEM/EDS, ICP-AES, and XPS analyses as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Notably, as a case study, the obtained UiO-66-Pyta after palladium adsorption, UiO-66-Pyta-Pd, was used as an efficient catalyst for Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction.