Adsorption is one of the most promising methods for desulfurization of transportation fuels, due to the strategy which enables removal of organic sulfur compounds to be conducted at ambient conditions with high efficiency. Adsorbent is the key to the adsorptive performance. Both p complexation and direct sulfur metal bonds are efficient methods for adsorptive desulfurization. For construction of these bonds, it is necessary to introduce active metal species on the support. In this work, Ce(NO 3 ) 2 was directly introduced into the assynthesized SBA-15, and high dispersion of CeO 2 nanoparticles was obtained. With the loading content of 12-46 wt%, the particle sizes of the CeO 2 NPs are in the range of 4.4-6.3 nm. The good dispersion status of CeO 2 nanoparticles is contributed to the template P123 preserved in as-synthesized SBA-15, which provides a confined space for the dispersion of CeO 2 nanoparticles. However, the large CeO 2 particles (7.0 nm) are formed for the sample originated from templatefree SBA-15. We also demonstrate that the adsorptive performance of SBA-15 is enhanced with the modification of CeO 2 nanoparticles. Besides, the performances of CeO 2 nanoparticlemodified samples stay in step with the dispersion status of the CeO 2 nanoparticles.