K2Ti8O17 nanorods have been synthesized by hydrothermal method and its photocatalytic performance of water splitting under UV irradiation was studied in detail. The photocatalytic activity has been studied in the light of the effect of metal nanoparticles decoration and interface structure. The hydrogen evolution rate of K(2)Ti(8)O(17 )sample modified by Pt cocatalyst is approximately 390.17 mmol mol(catalyst)(-1) h(-1), which is about 300 times higher than that of bare K2Ti8O17 photocatalyst. Remarkably, the amount of surface OH groups over K2Ti8O17 samples have a positive correlation with the hydrogen evolution rate, which resulted from various thermal annealing temperature. It is suggested that more hydroxyl radical generated over K2Ti8O17 sample result in higher holes consumption via methanol oxidation reaction, which favors the electron-hole separation and thereby exhibit better photocatalytic performance for hydrogen evolution. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.