Abstract: Calcium sorbent was prepared with NaOH, Na₂CO₃, MgO as additives. A bench scale experiment was carried out to study the effects of additives on SO₂ removal. The results showed that additives could enhance the sorbent’s reactivity with SO₂ by optimizing the structural properties of sorbent. SEM and EDAX analysis indicated that additives enlarged sorbent’s surface area and changed its chemical composition, which was beneficial to the desulfurization process.NaOH+Na₂CO₃ promoted sorbents showed better effects than those using NaOH alone.