Highly ordered nanorods array of B phase vanadium dioxide was firstly synthesized with n-butanol as the reducing agent via a simple hydrothermal method without using template. The samples have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The Size of VO2 (B) nanorods has the dimension of 50-100 nm in diameter and about 1-5 mu m in length. The samples were measured as electrode materials by charge-discharge technique and the VO2 (B) nanorods array demonstrated a high specific capacity of 520 mAh/g at 0.2C. The influence of reaction temperature on fabricating nanorods array has been studied. The possible growth mechanisms of formation of nanorods and assembly of array were discussed. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.