Abstract: The liquid absorption method applied to treat industrial organic waste gases includes two key aspects:absorbent choice and its regeneration. Eight water-soluble absorbents were selected, including two fluorosurfactants:FSO100 and FSN100; two non-ionic surfactants:Tween 80 (TW80) and Span 20 (SP20); two cationic surfactants:fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether sodium sulfate (AES) and fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether carboxylate (AEC); and two pseudo-surfactants:cyclodextrin (β-CD) and sodium acetate (SA). A dynamic absorption experiment and the heating distillation method were used to investigate their absorption capabilities to gaseous toluene, and the possibility to recover toluene from the absorbent solutions and regenerate them. The result showed that the property of the absorbent is greatly important to the toluene absorption efficiency. Among the eight absorbent solutions, the two fluorosurfactants presented the best performance, SP20 and AES were secondary, and the other four absorbent solutions had an obviously lower absorption capacity. The initial removal rates of toluene were 80%-90%, about 75% and 60%-70% respectively, and toluene saturation absorption concentrations were 0.58-3.45,0.38-1.44 and 0.14-1.01 mg/g respectively. Except for TW 80, which has a weak thermal stability and is unsuitable to be regenerated by distillation, the other absorbent solutions could keep their initial toluene absorption capacities during reuse, with a toluene recovery rate as high as 70%-85%. The partition coefficients of the eight absorbent solutions (calculated at an inlet toluene concentration of 3.0 g/m³) were quite different:0.41 and 0.62 for FSN100 and FSO100 respectively, 0.76 and 0.95 for SP20 and AES respectively, and between 1.12-3.54 for the other four absorbent solutions. The partition coefficient presented a negative correlation with the saturation absorption concentration, but a positive correlation with the volume mass transfer coefficient. In conclusion, the two fluorosurfactants have a practical potential to be applied to treat waste gas loaded with toluene, since they have a greater toluene absorption capacity, and heating distillation method is economical for the regeneration and toluene recovery.