Zirconia precursor nanowires were synthesized via the solvothermal reaction of zirconium tetra-n-propoxide Zr(OPrn)(4) with ethylene glycol and 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid at 160 degrees C. The as-synthesized nanowires were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetric (TG-DSC) analysis, and infrared spectroscopy (IR), etc. The length of the as-synthesized nanowires reaches similar to 20 mu m, and the width similar to 50 nm, giving an aspect ratio of a few hundreds. Upon calcination at elevated temperatures, the zirconia precursor nanowires transform from relative dense structure into highly porous ZrO2 nanowires consisting of interconnected nanocrystallites; in addition the length of the nanowires is greatly reduced. Cyclic voltammetry measurement shows that the modification of the graphite electrode with the ZrO2 nanowires greatly enhances sensitivity of the detection of vanadium, suggesting that ZrO2 nanowires may find important applications in vanadium(V) determination using electroanalytical methods with chemically modified electrode technique. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All Fights reserved.