Abstract: Silica gels with the high specific surface area and the high adsorption activity have been prepared from water glass and HCl through the process of adding surfactant. DTA TGA, BET, XRD, IR, TEM and some other methods are used to characterize the structure and performance of silica gels. The optimum technical conditions are as fallows: water glass content, 40 g/L; HCl concentration, 5 mol/L; surfactant content, 50 g/L; calcining temperature, 600 ℃; aging time, 1 h . The specific surface area of the silica gel is found to be 998 m 2/g: The static sorption capacity for zirconium reaches 0.344 mmol/g.