Rare earth is a very important strategic resource. But, impurities, such as Al3+, have great influence on the properties of rare earth material. In this paper, an Al3+-ionic imprinted polyamine functionalized silica gel sorbent was prepared by a surface imprinting technique for selectively adsorbing Al3+ from rare earth solution. The adsorption and recognition properties of IIP-PEI/SiO2 for Al3+ were studied in detail. The experimental results showed that IIP-PEI/SiO2 possessed strong adsorption affinity, specific recognition ability, and excellent selectivity for Al3+. The adsorption isotherm data greatly obey the Langmuir model, and the adsorption was typical monolayer. The adsorption capacity could reach to 1.98 mmol g(-1), and relative selectivity coefficients relative to Pr3+ and Nd3+ are 23.47 and 22.85, respectively. Besides, IIP-PEI/SiO2 was regenerated easily using diluted hydrochloric acid solution as eluent and IIP-PEI/SiO2 possesses better reusability. (c) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.