Reactive adsorption desulfurization (RADS) experiments were conducted over a series of commercial metal oxide supports ($Al_2O_{3-}$, $SiO_{2-}$, $TiO_{2-}$ and $ZrO_{2-}$) supported Ni/ZnO adsorbents. The adsorbents were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in order to find out the influence of specific types of surface chemistry and structural characteristics on the sulfur adsorptive capacity. The desulfurization performance of all the studied adsorbents decreased in the following order: Ni/ZnO-$TiO_2$ > Ni/ZnO-$ZrO_2$ > Ni/ZnO-$SiO_2$ > Ni/ZnO-$Al_2O_3$. Ni/ZnO-$TiO_2$ shows the best performance and the three hour sulfur capacity can achieve 12.34 mg S/g adsorbent with a WHSV of $4h^{-1}$. Various characterization techniques suggest that weak interaction between active component and support component, high dispersion of NiO and ZnO, high reducibility and large total Lewis acidity of the adsorbents are important factors in achieving better RADS performance.