Belonging to the technical field of membrane separation, the invention discloses a preparation method and application of a trivalent chromium ion imprinted composite membrane. The ion imprinted composite membrane provided by the invention is economical, practical, and simple in process, and can be used for selective adsorption and separation of trivalent chromium ions in water. The specific methodincludes: taking a commercially available membrane as the support membrane, adopting trivalent chromium ion as the template ion, using 2-vinyl pyridine as the functional monomer, combining ion imprinting technology with membrane separation technology, employing thermal initiation for thermal polymerization of the functional monomer and template ion on the surface of support membrane, and then performing elution to remove the template ion, thus obtaining the trivalent chromium ion imprinted composite membrane. The imprinted composite membrane has imprinted holes matching the shape, size and dimension of trivalent chromium ion on the surface, can specifically identify trivalent chromium ions in the target solution, and can effectively adsorb trivalent chromium ions in the solution.