Intercalation of pyridine resulted into nanorods of bismuth molybdates, which were characterized by TEM, IR, solid-state NMR, and XRD. However, the ambiguity of the nature of intercalated pyridine, which was expected to be as pyridine, pyridinium ion or pyridine bonded to bismuth molybdate has been resolved using TOF-SIMS. Static and temperature dependent TOF-SIMS supported the nature of intercalated pyridine species as pyridinium ion. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.