Coupling heat into photocatalysis (PC) has been found more efficient than PC for removal of volatile organic compounds (VOC). Therein, photothermal synergy induced photothermalcatalysis (PTC) sometimes tells different stories from PC. In this work, we revisit ST-01 TiO2 photocatalyst as photothermalcatalyst under blue light at 333 K and further investigate the role of surface grafted cocatalyst (CrxO, CoxO, CuxO, Pt) in catalytic removal of gaseous acetaldehyde pollutant. By comparison on the amount of cocatalyst, for PC, more CrxO cocatalyst (3 wt%) is favored for higher removal efficiency of acetaldehyde. For PTC, less CrxO cocatalyst (0.3 wt%) is favored. By further comparison on the type of cocatalyst, for PC, hole cocatalyst (CrxO and CoxO) gives inferior performance to that of electron cocatalyst (CuxO and Pt). For PTC, hole cocatalyst gives superior performance to that of electron cocatalyst. The difference between PC and PTC lies in synergistic effect between defect-related blue-light absorption, cocatalyst induced interfacial charge transfer and matched surface red-ox reaction rate. This work may provide new insight into the design and development of photothermalcatalyst for VOC removal.