In this work, the ternary hybrid photocatalyst composed of ZnO nanorods with BiOI and Pt NPs (denoted as Pt@BiOI/ZnO) was fabricated by a simple three-step method. The as-prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectrometry (DRS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which proved the strong interaction has occurred among the Pt, BiOI and ZnO. The phenol degradation test showed that the Pt@BiOI/ZnO ternary hybrid composite exhibited the maximum photodegradation efficiency of phenol (99.9%) under UV irradiation within 30 min compared to Pt/BiOI, BiOI/ZnO binary composites as well as Pt/ZnO. Additionally, the transient photovoltage (TPV), steady-state PL spectra and time-resolved PL spectra were used to investigate the possible mechanism for photocatalytic performance. Our results elaborated that the enhanced photocatalytic activity was mainly attributed to the synergetic effect of Pt/ZnO and BiOI/ZnO interfaces. Conversely, the interfacial interaction of Pt/BiOI is little contribution, indicating that the effective interfaces design is very important for the degradation of phenol in the preparation process of ternary hybrid photocatalyst. These findings will contribute to developing high efficiency photocatalysts for application in environmental remediation. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.