Vanadium carbide (V8C7) nanopowders were successfully prepared by thermal processing the precursor which originated from the mixture of ammonium vanadate (NH4VO3) and nanometer carbon black. The products were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) methods. The single phase V8C7 powders can be prepared at similar to 1100 degrees C for 1 h with the average crystallite size of 32.6 nm and the powders show good dispersion and are mainly composed of uniformly-sized spherical particles with a mean diameter of similar to 100 nm. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.