Trace amount of thiophenic compounds in fuel is harmful to the environment and challenging to get rid of efficiently. The objective of this work is to explore a new visible-light induced photocatalytic oxidative desulfurization (PODS) approach using BiVO4/C3N4@SiO2 with air/cumene hydroperoxide (CHP) under ambient conditions. A series of BiVO4/C3N4@SiO2 photocatalysts were prepared by a hydrothermal method and PODS tests were carried out in a Xenon lamp built-in batch reactor. The dibenzothiophene conversion of the PODS system reached as high as 99%. BiVO4/C3N4@SiO2 showed high vis-photocatalytic activity due to the effective charge separation of BiVO4/C3N4 and small particle size of BiVO4. Additional air flow was demonstrated to effectively enhance PODS kinetics of BiVO4/C3N4@SiO2 with CHP, which may be ascribed to the accelerated ROO center dot generation by air with R-center dot radical for DBT oxidation. Mixing silica gel with BiVO4/C3N4@SiO2 as a hybrid adsorbent under photocatalytic adsorptive desulfurization (PADS) showed a dramatically enhanced desulfurization capacity (7.2 mg/g) compared to that under sole ADS. When fitted to Langmuir adsorption isotherm, K and q(m) reached as high as 0.24 and 7.41. The integrated PADS system can be particularly suitable for s single-stage desulfurization for low-sulfur fuel production under visible light at ambient conditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.