The content of copper in the composites was analyzed by AAS and EDX methods. According to AAS, overall Cu content in the obtained composites was in the range from 0.8 to 16.2 %. Apparetly, copper particles located on the external surface of the support exhibit catalytic activity, because they are easily accessible to reagent molecules. Therefore, to estimate the amount of copper on the surface of the composite particles, EDX was used as the most suitable method for characterization of the chemical composition of the surface and elemental analysis of insoluble materials. Though this method has some limitations in characterizing samples, it could provide information on the content of C, N, O in the surface layer of the samples. According to EDX data (Table ), the surface layer contained Cu, C, N, and Si (except Cu@SiO2-11, which was prepared using activated carbon RWAP-1208 instead of SiO2). The values of mean mass fractions for Cu were in the range from 2% up to 23%, and these values expectedly grow with the increase of overall Cu content (measured by AAS). This fact may indicate that copper is mainly located on the outer surface of the composite particles and therefore is accessible to reagent molecules.