Carbon combustion synthesis of oxides (CCSO) is a novel process to rapidly produce high-purity, submicron, and porous powders of complex oxides. It is a modified form of self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) that uses carbon as the fuel instead of a pure metal. The CO2 release increases the porosity and friability of the products. Like SHS, it is much faster (order of minutes) than the calcination processes (order of hours). CCSO has several advantages over SHS (the initial components are less expensive, porosity of the products is up to 70%). CCSO can produce complex oxides, such as LaGaO3, which cannot be produced by SHS. The feasibility and features of CCSO are illustrated by its use in producing barium titanate, lithium manganese, and lanthanum gallium oxides. The carbon concentration enabled control of the moving front temperature and average velocity and the particle size and surface area. (c) 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers.