Anatase titanium dioxide nanoparticles were prepared from titanium oxysulphate (TiOSO 4 ) as a precursor and the base polymer Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone is used as a capping agent. TiO 2 nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDS, FT-IR, DLS, UV–Vis. Diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer. From XRD analysis it is seen that obtained diffraction peaks are broad which indicating that crystallite size is very small. Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) revealed that TiO 2 nanoparticles has diameter of 10 nm calcined at 400 °C. Photocatalytic activity was checked by employing the Methyl Orange as a model pollutant under UV-light (365 nm) which shows 94 % photo-degradation in 150 min. The novelty of present approach is the large scale production of polymer capped TiO 2 nanocrystals by using sol–gel process.