The formation of nanostructured metallic molybdenum from the MoO3-NaBH4-kNaCl system (where k is mole-number of NaCl) is analyzed thermodynamically and investigated experimentally under self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) mode. The laws of combustion and phase formation and an effect of sodium chloride on the characteristics of Mo powder are discussed. The result shows that mean particle size of Mo produced depends greatly on the amount of sodium chloride, especially the increasing of NaCl concentration leads to a small size Mo powder formation. Mo powder with the particle size at least 20 similar to 100 nm was synthesized at k = 2. As synthesized Mo powder have been compacted and successfully consolidated to densities exceeding 90% at the temperature of 1700degreesC. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.