Four kinds of silica-gel (SG)-supported diethylenetriamine (DETA) chelating resins SG-DETA-1,SG-DETA-2, SG-DETA-3, and SG-DETA-4 were prepared by functionalization of silica-gel via so-called "heterogeneous-direct-amination" (hetero-DA), "homogeneous-direct-amination" (homo-DA), "heterogeneous end-group protection" (hetero-EGP), and "homogeneous end-group protection" (homo-EGP) routes, respectively. These functionalized reactions on silica-gel were confirmed through elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometry, porous analysis, and thermogravimetry. Element analysis revealed that the direct-amination routes and homogeneous condition were more beneficial than the corresponding end-group protection routes and heterogeneous condition to the syntheses of chelating resins with high N content. Several metal ions, such as Ag+, Cu2+, Ni2+, Hg2+, Zn2+ and Pb2+, were chosen as representatives to investigate the relationship between adsorption capacities and N content of ligands onto the surface of silica-gel. The experiments results showed that all resins, SG-DETA-1, SG-DETA-2, SG-DETA-3 and SG-DETA-4, had a better adsorption for Hg2+ and Cu2+ than others. One conclusion should be drawn from the above compared experiments, that is, higher N content of silica-gel resins does not ensure a higher utilization ratio of N. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.