Acid gases, especially sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), released from the burning of fossil fuels, have made a great contribution to environmental pollution. However, the technologies to remove the acid gases have high operation costs and energy requirements. A kind of hydrophilic deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were synthesized and applied to solve the problem of SO 2 environmental pollution. The SO 2 absorption conditions were optimized including the kind of DESs, viscosity, and temperature. The hydrophilic interaction in SO 2 absorption was explored. The hydrophilic property of caprolactam/ tetrabutylammonium bromide DESs (TBAB/CPL) greatly reduced the gas transfer barrier, thus accreting the SO 2 absorption rate by enhancing the accessibility of the active sites on DESs and SO 2 . The surface tension decreased with the absorption of SO 2 , and the minimal surface tension of TBAB/CPL was 32 mN m −1 at 303.2 K (surface entropy, 0.0395 J K −1 m −2 ) when the concentration of TBAB/CPL aqueous solution was 2 mol L −1 . The phase-transfer process for the SO 2 absorption system was determined by nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The mechanism of the hydrophilic absorption of SO 2 in TBAB/CPL DESs was also developed.