Commercially available elemental Cu Zn Sn and Se powders were used to crystallize the stannite-type Cu2ZnSnSe4 compound through a solid state reaction The Cu2ZnSnSe4 reaction chemistry was also modeled based on the thermal analysis and X-ray powder diffraction results Se preferably reacted with Cu to form the alpha-CuSe and CuSe2 phases at low reaction temperatures The formation of the Cu5Zn8 inter-metallic phase occurred through an intermediate reaction path for the ZnSe formation At 320 C all of the elemental powders completely reacted to form the binary selenides of CuSe ZnSe and SnSe The crystallization of Cu2ZnSnSe4 began at 300 C The compositional investigation of the crystallized Cu2ZnSnSe4 compound revealed that the Se loss could not perfectly be avoided during the reaction The crystallization of Cu2ZnSnSe4 occurred through the reaction between Cu2SnSe3 and ZnSe (c) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved