In this paper, Ag/AgCl and Ag/AgCl/Al2O3 photocatalysts were synthesized via a precipitation reaction between NaCl and CH3COOAg or Ag(NH3)(2)NO3, wherein Ag/AgCI was immobilized into mesoporous Al2O3 medium. The Ag/AgCl-based nanostructures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL) spectra, and so on. The photocatalysts displayed excellent photocatalytic activity for the degradations of methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) pollutants under visible light irradiation. The Ag/AgCl(CH3COOAg)/Al2O3 sample exhibited the best photocatalytic performance, degrading 99% MO after 9 min of irradiation, which was 1.1 times, 1.22 times and 1.65 times higher than that of Ag/AgCl(Ag(NH3)(2)NO3)/Al2O3, Ag/AgCl(CH3COOAg) and Ag/AgCI(Ag(NH3)(2)NO3) photocatalyst, respectively. Meanwhile, Ag/AgCl(CH3COOAg)/Al2O3 also showed excellent capability of MB degradation. Compared to the data reported for Ag/AgCl/TiO2, the Ag/AgCl/Al2O3 prepared in this work exhibited a good performance for the degradation of methyl orange (MO). The results suggest that the dispersion of Ag/AgCl on mesoporous Al2O3 strongly affected their photocatalytic activities. O-2(center dot-), center dot OH radicals and Cl-0 atoms are main active species during photocatalysis. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.