To explore the relationship between semiconductor structure and plasmonic noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) property is crucial for developing highly efficient visible light driven photocatalyst. Here, dendritic alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 biphasic heterostructures were first synthesized by a facile and low-cost phase transformation method. Then, plasmonic Au NPs (including Au nanospheres (NSs, similar to 30 nm)) and Au nanorods (NRs, similar to 20, similar to 30, and similar to 35 nm) were loaded onto the alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 heterostructure. The results revealed that these alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 heterostructures exhibited much higher visible-light photocatalytic activities than alpha-Bi2O3 for dye degradation. More importantly, compared to plain alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 heterostructures, loading of Au NSs brought similar to 4 times increase in activity and Au NRs 5-11 times depending on nanorods size. The significant boosting of activity is attributed to the large enhancement of charge separation by the formation of alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 interface and more production of (OH)-O-center dot radicals by Au NSs or Au NRs. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption of these gold NPs on the alpha-Bi2O3/Bi2O2CO3 heterostructures could also have significant contribution to the activities due to their strong plasmonic near-fields. This work demonstrates that tailoring the semiconductor substrate structure and the plasmonic noble metal NPs properties should constitute a promising strategy for the design efficient solar energy driven photocatalytic materials. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.