In this work, we report the synthesis and characterization of vanadium (V) yttrium (Y) codoped TiO2 photocatalyst for photocatalytic degradation of aqueous pollutants. Nano-sized crystalline (V, Y) codoped TiO2 samples with different V concentrations were synthesized by hydrothermal method without post calcination. A redshift of optical absorption is found in all codoped samples describing the modification of the band structure. A nonlinear increase in the optical absorption edge of V, Y codoped TiO2 was observed with increasing V doping concentration. Spectroscopic investigations show that the doping occurs in the form of substitution for lattice sites. V. Y codoped TiO2 exhibits great enhancement in the photocatalytic response compared to pure TiO2 and it is attributed to the visible light absorption and effective utilization of the photogenerated carriers. The sample with 02% V, Y codoped TiO2 demonstrated the best photocatalytic behavior compared to the other synthesized samples. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.