Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are good absorbents that provide high specific surface area, modified pore surface and controllable pore size. The aim of this work is to prepare a MOFs material with good toluene adsorption property in the presence of water. In this paper, modified UiO-66 (University of Oslo 66) was successfully synthesized with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as structure-directing agent by a simple solvothermal method. The physical and chemical properties were obtained by a series of characterization instruments. Some missing-linker defect sites were observed on modified materials (defective UiO-66) and were known as the main active sites for toluene adsorption. The defective UiO-66 (PVP-U-0.5, 259 mg g(-1)) demonstrated 1.7 times toluene adsorption capacity of the pristine UiO-66 (151 mg g(-1)) when the PVP/Zr4+ ratio was 0.5. The interactions between toluene and UiO-66 and PVP-U-0.5 were assessed through the Henry's law constant (K-H) and the isosteric adsorption heat (Delta H-ads) which indicated that stronger interaction between PVP-U-0.5 and toluene molecules. Moreover, PVP-U-0.5 displayed good adsorption capacity (84 mg g(-1)) at high relative humidity (70% RH). Water temperature programmed desorption experiments revealed that PVP-U-0.5 had more hydrophobic property, which provided a further possibility for practical application for the removal of toluene. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.