using phenol as test molecule. The influence of furfural, chitosan and saccharose as carbon precursors was verified. Characterization was performed by N-2 adsorption isotherms, XRD, DR/UV-vis and SEM. The carbon precursor affects the surface area and the XRD patterns of TiO2-C. First and second order reaction rates approaches were used to estimate the photocatalytic activity. TiO2-C materials showed an increase up to 4.4 higher photoactivity than commercial TiO2. The present results suggest that hybrid TiO2-C nanostructured materials can be potentially used as eco-friendly and low-cost heterogeneous photocatalysts under UV-vis irradiation. (c) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.