This review gives a general overview of the state of the art in VOC adsorption technology. An analysis of 247 plants built between 1986 and 2003 shows that only five combinations of desorption process and adsorber design are widely used in industry. Besides non-regenerated fixed-bed-adsorbers these are PSA-fixed-bed-, TSA-fixed-bed- (steam), TSA-fixed-bed- (purge gas) and TSA-rotating-disc-adsorbers. Moving-bed adsorbers can be found only in specific niches. In the second part of the article advantages as well as disadvantages of each technology are discussed based on typical examples from industry. These properties lead to specific limitations of each technology in industrial applications, which are visualized in a matrix plot.