A series of TiO2-N/SnO2X heterostructure photocatalysts were synthesized by a hydrolysis -deposition method. The structure, existing states of N and SnO2 heterostructure at the interface of TiO2-N/SnO2X were studied by EADX, XRD, Raman, FT-IR, XPS, and HRTEM. The band structure is investigated by both theoretical calculation and experiment characterization. It was found that the introduction of NO surface species and SnO2 nanoparticles would enhance the absorption in visible region, increase reactive oxidative species and separate photogenerated electrons and holes efficiently. Therefore, the photocatalytic activity is improved significantly for TiO2-N/SnO2X, compared with TiO2-N and TiO2 under visible and UV light irradiation. This work may offer a new strategy to fabricate new photocatalyst with high photo catalytic performance. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.