Photocatalysts with excellent photocatalytic reaction activity and ideal selectivity are highly desirable for pollutants clearance and purification of targeted organics from a mixture. Continued efforts toward the goal, we here present a facile hydrothermal route to synthesize TiO2/Bi-benzenedicarboxylate/BiOCl nanoparticles decorated ultrathin nanosheets with a thickness less than 5 nm on a large scale. The as-synthesized products showed excellent photocatalytic activities for the degradation of various dyes such as rhodamine B, eosin Y and methylene blue in aqueous solution under visible light irradiation. The photocatalytic activities of TiO2/Bi-benzenedicarboxylate/BiOCl nanocomposites for the degradation of rhodamine B and eosin Y could be adjusted through tuning the content of TiO2. With increasing the amount of TiO2, the composites showed declining photocatalytic activities in decomposing of rhodamine B while on the contrary they displayed enhanced photocatalytic activities in decomposing of eosin Y. Interestingly, TiO2/Bi-benzenedicarboxylate/BiOCl composite nanosheets showed obvious photocatalytic selectivity in a mixed dyes system. The photocatalytic reaction and selectivity mechanisms of the nanocomposites for the degradation of the dyes were discussed on the basis of experimental results. The current study not only develops a new methodology to synthesize ultrathin nanosheets but also provides a novel strategy to design composite photocatalysts with high reaction activity and good selectivity. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.