Increasing environmental pollution caused by the volatile organic Compounds due to their toxicity is a matter of great concern. So it is crucial to develop processes which can destroy these compounds effectively. It has been found that the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 towards the decomposition of gaseous benzene can be greatly enhanced by loading Pd on the surface of TiO2. The results show that the optimum palladium loading is 0.25 wt.% The prepared photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, UV-vis diffuse reflectance and XPS. XRD results indicate that no peaks of Pd are detected in the 2(theta) region from 10 degrees to 90 degrees. Pd/TiO2 absorbs much more light than TiO2 in the visible light region. The XPS spectrum shows that there are Ti, O, C and Pd elements on the surface of the Pd/TiO2, the binding energy values of Ti2p of 0.25%Pd/TiO2 transfer to a lower value. In addition, the photocatalytic performance of 0.25%Pd/TiO2 was investigated, the result illustrates that 0.25%Pd/TiO2 demonstrates 2.32 times the photocatalytic activity of pure TiO2. The reason of promotion of photocatalytic performance was discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved