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Graphical abstract Highlights • Natural porous minerals were used as VOCs adsorbents. • Adsorption capacity of mineral is linearly related to its specific surface area. • Models fit breakthrough curves, isotherm and kinetic processes well. • The acid stellerite could be a promising adsorbent for VOC adsorption. Abstract The abundance of natural porous minerals and their low cost make them the potential adsorbents for VOCs (volatile organic compounds). In this paper, three natural minerals (diatomite, stellerite and vitric tuff) and their corresponding acid-treated minerals were used as adsorbents. The adsorption performances of minerals were investigated by the adsorption breakthrough curves of VOCs. The results indicated that the properties of organic compounds such as boiling point and polarity and the surface area and pore volume of minerals had obvious effects on the adsorption of VOCs over minerals. Increasing adsorption temperature and relative humidity would have negative effects on the VOC adsorption of minerals. The adsorption capacity of 2-heptanone over acid stellerite decreased by 7.2% as the temperature rose from 25°C to 45°C. The adsorption capacity of acid stellerite for 2-heptanone reduced by 60.9% when relative humidity increased from 0% to 75%. Minerals were tested for five adsorption-regeneration cycles to study the reusability. Better fittings of Thomas model, pseudo-first order kinetics model, and Freundlich model were showed in fitting the adsorption. Overall, porous minerals with high specific surface area and pore volume have promising prospect in VOCs adsorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]