Water is inevitable in production, purification, and transportation of liquid fuels. At the same time, water in fuels is a significant concern to the fuel engines as well as storage tanks. Removing water and their soluble materials from liquid fuels, like Lemon Essential Oil (LEO), Castor oil, Pungan oil, Palm oil, Engine oil (lubricating oil 20/40), and diesel is necessary to maintain the quality of fuels and to comply with legal and commercial supplies. In this present study, a defatted Moringa oleifera seed extract loaded keratin-co-sodium acrylate hydrogel was developed for the complete removal of suspended water/moisture and water-soluble materials present in the fuel samples. Thus, a hydrophilic and highly crosslinked hydrogel was grafted for the highest water absorbing/removal from liquid fuels. In our perspective view, the best combination of synthetic and natural polymeric materials grafting hydrogel was identified via optimization technique. The experimentally optimized keratin-co-sodium acrylate hydrogel has shown the most significant property of water-absorbing capacity. Further, the results have shown and demonstrated that defatted Moringa oleifera seed extract loaded keratin-co-sodium acrylate hydrogel absorbed/removed ~95% water, and keratin-co-sodium acrylate hydrogel was ~90% from fuel samples. Furthermore, the observed results indicated that defatted M. oleifera seed extract removed unwanted water-soluble materials present in the fuel samples as compared with keratin-co-sodium acrylate hydrogel. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of Springer Nature.