We synthesized Zn2SnO4 nanomaterials by the carbon-thermal evaporation method with Zn, SnO2 and C powder mixture, without using a catalyst, to investigate the controllable synthesis of Zn2SnO4 nanomaterials and to study their optical properties in the ultraviolet region. The structure, and morphology of the as-grown products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was also used to study the type of binding of the elements onto the product surfaces. Results show that zinc and tin are in the +2 and +4 oxidation states, respectively. We detected two different Zn 2p3/2 binding energies and attributed these to ZnO and Zn2SnO4. The two binding energies of Sn 3d revealed that Sn4+ occupies two distinct sites in Zn2SnO4. Our measured photoluminescence spectrum (PL) at room temperature consists of a broad emission in the ultraviolet region (320-450 nm) and a strong emission in the visible region. The asymmetric ultraviolet emission band can be divided into two emission bands (358 and 385 nm). Compared with the PL spectrum of pure ZnO, the band centered at 358 nmis assigned to the near-band-emission of Zn2SnO4.