Photocatalytic water splitting for H₂ production and photocatalytic oxidation of 2-propanol, an example of volatile organic compounds, were investigated over TiO₂ catalysts loaded with gold and/or ceria. In the water splitting reaction the presence of gold only slightly affected the performance of TiO₂ whereas the presence of CeO₂ had a more remarkable positive effect. In the 2-propanol oxidation Au/TiO₂ was the most active sample in terms of alcohol conversion whereas Au/TiO₂-CeO₂ exhibited the highest CO₂ yield. On the basis of characterization experiments (X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis EDX, surface area measurements, Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) and Raman spectroscopy), it was suggested that the interaction of Au with TiO₂ causes an increase in the charge separation between the photo-excited electron/hole pairs, leading to an enhanced photocatalytic activity (to acetone over Au/TiO₂ and to CO₂ over Au/TiO₂-CeO₂), whereas the presence of ceria, acting as a hole trap, positively mainly affects the formation of hydrogen by water splitting.