In an attempt to construct efficient and robust photocatalysts/systems for solar H-2 evolution from water splitting, the development of highly active and stable H-2 evolution cocatalysts is crucial yet remains a great challenge. Herein, we present that vanadium carbide (VC) can serve as an efficient cocatalyst when integrated with TiO2 for photo catalytic H-2 evolution. With 15 wt% VC, the obtained TiO2/VC (15 wt%) composite photo catalyst (denoted as TV15) shows the highest photocatalytic H-2 evolution rate of 521.4 mu mol h(-1) g(-1), while the pristine TiO2 hardly shows H-2 evolution activity. The apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of H-2 evolution reaches up to 2.3% under light irradiation of 365 nm. Notably, the TV15 exhibits excellent photocatalytic stability for H-2 evolution over four cycles of continuous light irradiation of 20 h. The enhanced activity of TV15 can be attributed to the cocatalyst effects of VC, which can not only effectively capture the photogenerated electrons of TiO2 to greatly enhance the charge separation efficiency but also significantly reduce the overpotential of H-2 evolution reaction, thus enhancing the photocatalytic activity of TiO2/VC towards H-2 evolution. This work provides a new insight to rationally design and develop efficient photocatalysts using active and stable transition metal carbides as cocatalysts. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.