The zinc oxide thin films on aluminum foil have been successfully prepared by sol-gel method with methyl glycol as solvent. The film was characterized by means of XRD, TG, UV-vis, SEM and AFM, which show that the ZnO/Al film is formed by a layer of ZnO nano-sized particles with average diameter of 52.2 nm. Under the initial concentration of 20 mg/L phenol solution (500 mL) and visible light irradiation time of 3 h, more than 40% of the initial phenol was totally mineralized using two pieces of ZnO/Al thin film as photocatalyst with an efficient irradiation area of 400 cm2. It is a promising visible light responded photocatalyst for theactivation of O2 at room temperature to degrade organic pollutants.