Amorphous TiO2 layers with a controllable thickness from 3.5 to 40 nm were coated on the one-dimensional CdS nanorods surface under mild conditions. Compared to the bare CdS nanorods, the as-prepared CdS@TiO2 nanorods exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activities for phenol photodecomposition under visible light irradiation. The improved photoactivity is ascribed to the efficient separation of photogenerated electron and hole charge carriers between CdS cores and TiO2 shells. This study promises a simple approach to fabricating CdS@TiO2 core-shell structure nanocomposites, and can be applied for other semiconductor cores with TiO2 shells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.