A novel one-step strategy has been developed to prepare boronic acid functional group modified silica particles, SiO2@GOPS-APBA, which contained large amount of immobilized boronic acid groups and demonstrated high affinity towards diol-containing compounds. Solid state NMR and FT-IR spectrum proved that the boronic acid groups were successfully introduced on the surface of silica. TGA and element analysis demonstrated that the amount of boronic acid groups immobilized on the silica was about 1.0 mmol/g. The morphology and structure were studied by SEM and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements. The adsorption amount of catechol on SiO2@GOPS-APBA was determined to be 162 mu mol/g, which was higher than the samples prepared by the previously published approaches. This one-step approach represented an environment-friendly conception and a promising surface functionlization method. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.