The thermal response time of gas sensors based on self-heated nanowires is extremely fast (a few milliseconds). It makes it possible to observe the kinetics of the interactions between the gas molecules and the metal oxide surface. This feature paves the way to employ the self-heating effect in pulsed operation mode to improve the selectivity and analytical capabilities of metal oxide-based sensors. In this work we show the feasibility of using this approach in individual SnO2 nanowires for the quantitative analysis of carbon monoxide (CO) and humidity (H2O) gas blends. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.