We report a facile approach for the synthesis of TiO2-Carbon (C) hybrid formed by a ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) complexation between a small organic molecule precursor, 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene (DN) and TiO2 nanomaterial. The resultant photocatalysts were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface area and porosity analysis, Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Carbonization by N-2 pyrolysis at 800 degrees C altered the physical properties of the TiO2 as evidenced by the increase in the surface area of TiO2 from 6.5 m(2) g(-1) to 12.5 m(2) g(-1) and fluorescence quenching of TiO2 emission. The photocatalytic performances of these TiO2-C hybrid materials were evaluated by calculating the amount of hydrogen evolved from the decomposition of water under solar simulated illumination. A marked improvement was observed from similar to 0 to 2.6 mu mol/g(TiO2)/h evolved from the bare TiO2-0 and TiO2-C-240 composites, respectively. These results suggested that anchoring of C onto the TiO2 surface can harness effective transfer of electrons through the TiO2-C hetero junction, and promote the photocatalytic performance of TiO2. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.