Cu vanadate nanorods have been used as the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified materials for the electrochemical detection of tartaric acid. The effects of scan rate, tartaric acid concentration and electrolytes in the electrochemical behaviours of tartaric acid in KCl solution have been analysed. Two pairs of semi-reversible cyclic voltammogram (CV) peaks are observed. The CV peaks are located at +0.12 V, -0.04 V (cvp1, cvp2) and -0.07 V, -0.41 V (cvp1′, cvp2′), respectively. The intensity of the electrochemical CV peaks increases linearly with the increase of the scan rate from 25 to 200 mVs -1 , tartaric acid concentration from 0.01 to 2 mM, respectively. The detection limit is 7.6 μM and 1.3 μM for cvp1 and cvp2, respectively at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. Cu vanadate nanorods modified GCE shows good stability.Keywords: tartaric acid; Cu vanadate nanorods; electrochemical detection; glassy carbon electrode; GCE.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Pei, L.Z., Wei, T., Lin, N. He has published more than 50 papers, reviews and communications in international journals, such as J. Mater. Chem. A, CrystEngComm, J. Electrochem. Soc., Electrochim. Acta, Phys. Rev. Lett., RSC Adv., J. Alloy Compd. and Mater. Charact. He has also one US patent and more than ten Chinese patents.