A green, rapid microwave-assisted solvothermal process using tetraethylene glycol (TEG) as a reducing agent has been explored as a soft-chemistry route for the preparation of various lower-valent transition metal oxides. To demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, lower-valent binary oxides such as V4O9, Mn3O4 or MnO, CoO, and Cu2O have been obtained within a short reaction time of 30 min by reducing, respectively, V2O5, MnO2, Co3O4, and CuO with TEG at <300 degrees C. Moreover, the approach has been used to extract oxygen from ternary oxides such as LaFeO3, SrMnO3, LaCoO3, LaNiO3, and La4Ni3O10. The oxidation state of the transition metal ions and the oxygen content in these ternary oxides could be tuned by precisely controlling the reaction temperatures from 160 to 300 degrees C. The products have been characterized by X-ray powder diffraction and iodometric titration. The versatility of this novel technique is demonstrated by the facile synthesis of V4O9, which has only been produced recently in single-phase form.