Four carbon-based adsorbents (activated carbon, oxidatively modified activated carbon, graphite, and graphite oxide) were investigated as adsorbents for selective removing quinoline from a model hydrocarbon fuel. The surface chemical properties of these carbon-based adsorbents were characterized by temperatureprogrammed desorption coupled with mass spectrometry (TPD-MS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XRD), elementary analysis (EA) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption analyzer in detail. The influences of the textural structures and the surface functional groups of these carbon adsorbents on their adsorption performance were examined. The activated carbon modified by ammonium persulfate oxidation (APS) can achieve an adsorption capacity as high as 35.7 mg-N/g. The results indicated that the oxygen-containing functional groups on the surface play a crucial role in determining their adsorptive performance for quinoline. In addition, enhancement of the interlayer distance in the graphite oxide results in an dramatic increase in the adsorption capacity of the graphite oxide. The accessibility of the oxygen functional groups on the surface for quinoline is important to the adsorption behavior. Considering its high adsorption capacity and good regenerability, the graphite oxide may also be a promising adsorbent for selectively adsorptive removing the nitrogen compounds from the liquid hydrocarbon streams.Among the adsorbents, activated carbon (AC) has been widely studied in ADN due to its significant advantages, such as lower price, wider range of sources, and easy modification of pore structure and surface functional groups. 6,15,16,18 More importantly, it has good capacity and reasonable selectivity for nitrogen compounds. However, the maximum ADN capacity of AC reported in the literature is only around 17.6 mg-N per gram of solid, 15, 19 and the adsorption selectivity of ACs for the nitrogen compounds, especially