1 and 5 wt% initial introduced contents of carbon (denoted as 1C/TiO2 and 5C/TiO2, respectively) were used to engineer the interfacial properties of mesoporous TiO2 for studying its hydrodesulfurization (HDS). The physical structure, surface properties and dispersion state of active species of samples were characterized by various technologies. The results showed that there was no obvious difference in physical structure of supports and catalysts before and after interfacial engineering. The carbon species formed on the surface of 1C/TiO2 was only graphitic carbon, whereas that of 5C/TiO2 was composed of mixed graphitic carbon and amorphous carbon. H2S-TPD results displayed that H2S adsorption-desorption behavior was mainly influenced by the different states of carbon species: H2S easily desorbed from 1C/TiO2 surface but strongly adsorbed on 5C/TiO2 surface. This was because H2S had a strong adsorption on amorphous carbon, but a weak one with the graphitic carbon. Sulfided active species were well formed in both 1C/TiO2 and 5C/TiO2 supported catalysts. The dibenzothiophene (DBT) conversion was increased to 98% on the 1C/TiO2 supported catalyst, but was decreased to 50% on the 5C/TiO2 supported catalyst, significantly different from the conversion of the pristine TiO2 supported catalyst (65%). It was found that the H2S adsorption-desorption behavior was closely related to the kind of interfacial carbon, which further influenced the HDS performance of mesoporous TiO2-supported HDS catalyst. [GRAPHICS]