Titanium dioxide photocatalysts were prepared by a newly developed synthesis method that involves rapid heating with short, medium and long exposures of the sol-gel prepared amorphous starting materials (RHSE, RHME and RHLE series) at different temperatures and calcination times. These materials were characterized by various methods, such as XRD, TEM, DRS, IR, nitrogen adsorption and XPS techniques. The detailed study of these catalysts revealed that at low calcination temperatures (e.g. 400 degrees C) the highest activity will be achieved if a long calcination (90-120 min) is applied because of the surface purification from the deposited organics. At higher temperatures (e.g. 550 degrees C) shorter calcination times (5-10 min) proved to be effective to achieve high UV activity. At this temperature an unidentified oxygen type was detected from the 01s XPS of the samples which seems to be related to the presence of Ti3+. At 600 degrees C both short (10 min) and medium calcination (30-90 min) times were found to be beneficial for the phenol degradation under UV irradiation due to the very effective sensitization (10 min of calcination) and surface OH-group preservation (60 min of calcination). (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.