Cd/In-glycerate spheres are synthesized through a simple solvothermal method. After thermal treatment, these Cd/In-glycerates can be converted into CdIn 2 O 4 spheres. Many characterization methods were performed to reveal the microstructure and morphology of the CdIn 2 O 4 . It was found that pure CdIn 2 O 4 phase was obtained for the Cd/In starting materials at ratios of 1:1.6. The CdIn 2 O 4 spheres are composed by a large number of nanoparticles subunits. The CdIn 2 O 4 sphere-based sensor exhibited a low detection limit (1 ppm), high response (81.20 to 500 ppm n-butanol), fast response (4 s) and recovery (10 s) time, good selectivity, excellent repeatability, and stability at 280 • C. Our findings highlight the possibility to develop a novel gas sensor based on CdIn 2 O 4 for application in n-butanol detection with high performance.