An environmental friendly nanocrystalline NixTiO2 (x=5 and 7%) was synthesized by hydrothermal method The requisite quantity of commercial TiO2 and Ni(NO3)(2) 6H(2)O was leached in alkaline medium using hydrothermal reactor at 120 degrees C The anatase nanocrystalline undoped and Ni-doped TiO2 was obtained for the first time for the functional catalysis The reported method is effective for the synthesis of visible light driven photocatalyst and easy to scale-up XRD results showed that the nickel was doped in the form of NiO SEM picture shows spherical morphology to Ni-doped TiO2 and nanofibered particle to hydrothermally treated TiO2 samples FESEM pictures of hydrothermally alkali treated undoped and Ni-doped TiO2 powders afforded the particles size in the range of 50-85 nm The DRS analysis confers visible absorption edge to Ni-doped TiO2 at 550 nm Ni-doped TiO2 catalysts showed 63% more efficiency than the commercial TiO2 to degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light irradiation (c) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved