Ru doped anatase supported on silica was prepared by solid-state dispersion method and examined for the photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide in aqueous medium at ambient conditions. To assist in interpreting the photocatalytic behaviour of Ru-TiO2/SiO2, reference systems consisting of Ru doped TiO2 and TiO2 Supported on SiO2 were also analyzed and the conditions were optimized. Ru/TiO2 photocatalysts with metal loadings of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 1.0 wt% were prepared by impregnation method and a series of TiO2/SiO2 catalysts with low TiO2 (1, 3, 5 and 10 wt%) contents were prepared by solid-state dispersion method. The photocatalysts were characterized using Xray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis DRS, FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy. The results showed that TiO2 particles with Ru ions have higher photocatalytic activity than undoped TiO2 and the optimum Ru loading was found to be 0.5 wt%. Nevertheless, the yield increased notably when TiO2 was supported on SiO2. This strong enhancement suggests that in 10 wt% TiO2/SiO2 the efficiency of charge separation is strongly influenced through the presence of Ti-O-Si bridging bonds. On the contrary, Ru-TiO2/SiO2 has no significant improvement in activity over TiO2/SiO2 except that it shows nearly quadruple times higher activity for the formation of methanol than Ru/TiO2. The difference in the photocatalytic activity is related to its physico-chemical properties. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.