The cathodic protection property of TiO2 coatings under UV illumination suffers from certain disadvantages, which prevents its use for wider applications. SnO2 being an n-type semiconductor is also expected to behave like TiO2 under illumination. Based on this expectation, the photoelectrochemical properties of pure SnO2 coatings on indium-tin oxide glass substrates using SnO2 synthesized by two different wet-chemical processes were studied. SnO2 prepared by Pechini process behaved favorably for cathodic protection applications. (C) 2004 The Electrochemical Society.