Organosilanes with different head groups and chemical properties, including phenyltriethoxysilane (PTES), aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), and trimethylchlorosilane (TMCS), were used to modify the adsorption properties of diatomite (DE). Characterizations of the as-synthesized samples were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared spectroscopy (IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), nitrogen adsorption–desorption and solid-state ²⁹Si magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS NMR). SEM imagines show that the morphology of DE was remained during the modification. IR spectra provide clear evidence that they were indeed modified as intended. The results of TGA show that the weigh losses of all samples were increased after silylation. And the MAS NMR indicated that large amounts of isolated silanols condense with the organolsilanes, which further proved the organic groups have been loaded onto the diatomite. The adsorption experiments of methane by raw and three modified diatomite were also studied. Results showed that the adsorption amount increases constantly with the increasing of pressure and the equilibrium have not been reached at the room temperature. The adsorption data indicate that the sorption of CH₄ on modified products and diatomite are dominated by multilayer coverage and they all fit the Freundlich isotherm equation well. The PTES-DE and APTES-DE have excellent CH₄ adsorption capacity and they can reach the adsorption target proposed by DOE far below 35 bar, at 3 bar and 7.5 bar respectively. These two materials exhibit excellent adsorption performance for CH₄ and have the potential to provide improved methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

使用具有不同头基和化学特性的有机硅烷，包括苯基三乙氧基硅烷（PTES），氨丙基三乙氧基硅烷（APTES）和三甲基氯硅烷（TMCS），来改变硅藻土（DE）的吸附性能。通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM），红外光谱（IR），热重分析（TGA），氮吸附-解吸和固态²⁹研究了合成样品的表征²⁹硅魔角旋转核磁共振（MAS NMR）。SEM图像表明，修饰过程中保留了DE的形态。红外光谱提供了明确的证据，表明它们确实已按预期进行了修饰。TGA的结果表明，甲硅烷基化后所有样品的重量损失均增加。并且MAS NMR表明大量分离的硅烷醇与有机硅烷缩合，这进一步证明有机基团已经负载在硅藻土上。还研究了原料硅藻土和三种改性硅藻土对甲烷的吸附实验。结果表明，随着压力的增加，吸附量不断增加，在室温下还没有达到平衡。吸附数据表明CH ₄的吸附改性产品上的硅藻土和硅藻土以多层覆盖率为主，它们都很好地满足了Freundlich等温线方程。PTES-DE和APTES-DE具有出色的CH ₄吸附能力，可以达到DOE提出的远低于35 bar，3 bar和7.5 bar的吸附目标。这两种材料对CH ₄表现出优异的吸附性能，并且有可能提供减少温室气体排放的改进方法。