Application of low temperature oxygen plasma was proposed to modify activated carbons (ACs) for enhancing their adsorption toward dibenzothiophene (DBT) in a model diesel fuel. The textural structures and oxygen-containing group concentrations of the modified ACs were separately characterized and measured. Results showed that the use of oxygen plasma to modify the ACs made carbon surface oxygen-containing groups greatly increase, and thus significantly improved their adsorption capacities of DBT. More importantly, this novel modification method effectively keep the mass losses of the ACs to fell within a very narrow range of +/- 2%, which overcame a demerit of conventional thermal oxidation treatment which resulted in bad mass loss of 31.7-91.4%. The isotherms of DBT on the modified ACs were significantly higher than those on original AC. Fixed-bed breakthrough experiments showed that the working adsorption capacity of the modified ACs for DBT increased by 49.1% compared to the original AC. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.