Vanadium-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles have been synthesized by sol-gel method. In our approach the water for hydrolysis used in the synthesis of nanopowder was slowly released followed by a thermal drying in ethyl alcohol at 250 degrees C. The obtained nanopowder was characterized by various techniques such as particle size analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). In the as-prepared state, the powder with an average particle size of 25 nm presents a strong luminescence band in the visible range. From photoluminescence excitation (PIE) the energy position of the obtained PL band depends on the excitation wavelength and this PL band can be also observed under visible excitations. This result is very promising for visible photo catalysis applications, which was confirmed by methylene blue photo-degradation using visible lamp as a light source. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.