This investigation examined the instantaneous adsorption of 1,3-butadiene by aluminum-modified mesoporous silica SBA-15 at ambient temperature. To efficiently trap the 1,3-butadiene pollutant in environment, alumina was incorporated in SBA-15 through various pathways such as one-pot synthesis, solid state grinding and impregnation, and the property-function relation of resulting composites were characterized with XRD, N-2 adsorption-desorption, FAR and NH3-TPD techniques. Adsorption of N-nitrosopyrrolidine (NPYR) was employed for the first time to reveal the difference between the mesoporous silica with the same Al-content but prepared with different methods, providing a potential method for the delicate characterization. Modification with alumina significantly increased the capability of SBA-15 to adsorb 1,3-butadiene, and the one-pot synthesized sample exhibited a higher activity than the post-modified samples, resulting from the formation of Bronsted acidic sites and reservation of silianol groups on SBA-15 host. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.