BiVO 4 porous microspheres were fabricated by a facile hydrothermal reaction. Various analytical techniques such as x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and N 2 adsorption-desorption were adopted to characterize their structure, morphology, and chemical composition. The results showed the molecular weight of PEG had a significant influence on the morphologies of BiVO 4 samples, and high molecular weight of PEG favored the formation of porous sphere-shaped nanostructure due to longer chain-like coordination complexes. The gas sensing properties of these BiVO 4 microspheres were further investigated, and all the four BiVO 4 sensors demonstrated the increasing responses with the increase of working temperatures, and reached their maximum values at 340 • C. The ethanol-selective characteristics of the BiVO 4 sensor synthesized by the assist of PEG1000 towards 200 ppm ethanol presented significantly higher gas response than all the other interfering gases. Moreover, the BiVO 4 sensor also displayed fast response/recovery, and excellent stability for 14-day continuous measurement. INDEX TERMS Monitoring, BiVO 4 , ethanol, gas sensor.