A novel magnetically separable photocatalyst (titania-coated carbon encapsulatedmagnetite: TCCEF) was prepared. The prepared composite photocatalyst wascharacterized with an x-ray diffractometer (XRD), a transmission electron microscope(TEM), a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) and a vibrating samplemagnetometer (VSM). The photocatalytic activity of the samples was determined bydegrading model contaminated water, a phenol aqueous solution. The resultswere compared with single-phase titania (pure titania and Degussa P25) andFe3O4/TiO2, and enhanced photocatalytic activity was obtained. It is suggested that the enhancedphotocatalytic activity is ascribed to two major factors. First, the encapsulation ofmagnetite into the carbon layer may inhibit the direct electrical contact of titaniaand magnetite, hence preventing the photodissolution of the iron oxide phase.Second, the enhanced hydroxyl groups on TCCEF may inhibit the recombinationof electron–hole pairs. On the other hand, the magnetic photocatalyst can beeasily recovered from a slurry with the application of an external magnetic field.