SnO2 nanoparticles with high surface area have been synthesized by a homogeneous precipitation ethanol-thermal method with CO(NH2)(2) and SnCl4 center dot 5H(2)O as starting materials. Ft-IR, XRD, BET and TEM have been employed to characterize the as-prepared samples. The results show that the homogeneous precipitation ethanol-thermal method can effectively restdispersed and less aggregated with a size of 8-9 nm and high-specific surface area over 200rain the agglomeration, by which the SnO2 powders obtained are well 200 m(2) g(-1). The results of gas sensing measurements show that the sensors fabricated by the SnO2 nanoparticles obtained by the homogeneous precipitation ethanol-thermal method exhibit excellent sensitivity behavior to methanol and ethanol gases at room temperature. When the concentration of ethanol is 80 ppm, the sensitivity is ca. 25, and the recovery time is less than 25 s at room temperature. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.