In the present work, suitable absorbent material for high temperature desulfurization was investigated in order to apply internally in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). It was found that nano-scale high surface area CeO 2 has useful desulfurization activity and enables efficient removal of H 2 S from feed gas between 500 to 850 o C. In this range of temperature, compared to the conventional low surface area CeO 2 , 80-85% of H 2 S was removed by nano-scale high surface area CeO 2 , whereas only 30-32% of H 2 S was removed by conventional low surface area CeO 2 . According to the XRD studies, the product formed after desulfurization over nano-scale high surface area CeO 2 was Ce 2 O 2 S. EDS mapping also suggested the uniform distribution of sulfur on the surface of CeO 2 . Regeneration experiments were then conducted by temperature programmed oxidation (TPO) experiment. Ce 2 O 2 S can be recovered to CeO 2 after exposure in the oxidation condition at temperature above 600 o C. It should be noted that SO 2 is the product from this regeneration process. According to the SEM/EDS and XRD measurements, all Ce 2 O 2 S forming is converted to CeO 2 after oxidative regeneration. As the final step, a deactivation model considering the concentration and temperature dependencies on the desulfurization activity of CeO 2 was applied and the experimental results were fitted in this model for later application in the SOFC model.