The surface properties of ceramic powders play an important role in the production of devices of high quality, high performance and reliability. Many of these properties are related to interactions with the environment. One example, ceramics are used in gas sensor devices. A ceramic material that has been reported as promising gas sensor is perovskite BaSnO 3 (barium stannate). In this work we performed the synthesis of the BaSnO 3 compound by solid state reaction to study its structural properties, microstructure and electrical behavior in function of atmosphere. The samples were characterized by thermogravimetry, differential scanning calorimetry, x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, dilatometry and impedance spectroscopy. For the production of BaSnO 3 used two methods of synthesis. the first method, called route 1, the preparation was performed directly from the mixing of powder precursors. The second, named as route 2, the precursor powders were subjected to heating separately before mixing. The results obtained using the route 1 showed the presence of secondary phases (SnO 2 and BaCO 3 ) and the formation of liquid phase during sintering of the ceramics. The results obtained with the procedure adopted in the route 2 showed only the presence of the desired (BaSnO 3 ) phase and no liquid phase during sintering. In order to investigate what the effects caused by the water adsorption by perovskite BaSnO 3 , the green-ceramic bodies produced by route 2 were submitted to immersion in water prior to sintering. This procedure did not result in the appearance of secondary phases, but was verified the presence of the liquid phase, and the ceramics showed lower density and larger average grain size. For the electrical characterization we used the following atmospheres: vacuum, air, argon containing 5% hydrogen and argon containing 15% hydrogen. The results showed that the barium stannate shows a significant sensitivity to the conductivity in the studied atmospheres at temperatures above 100 o C.