The adsorption properties of toxic gases on the surface of low-dimensional nanomaterials are a research hot topic and key issue for developing semiconductor sensors to detect toxic gas molecules. Recently, a novel orthorhombic BN monolayer has attracted extensive attention from researchers. Using first principles calculations, we investigate the adsorption properties of typical toxic gas molecules, such as CO, H ₂S, NH ₃, NO, NO ₂, and SO ₂molecules, on the surface of two-dimensional (2D) orthorhombic BN monolayer adsorption. The calculated adsorption energy show that the adsorptions of the above six molecules on the surface of BN monolayer are energy-favorable exothermic processes. It is found that NO ₂and NH ₃molecules are of chemical adsorption, while other systems are of physical adsorption, and NO adsorbing system exhibits a spin-polarized electronic band structure. The calculated density of states reveals that the adsorption of NO molecule and SO ₂molecule have significant influences on the electronic structure near the Fermi level. Moreover, the adsorption of the NO ₂molecule on the substrate exhibits remarkable variation of the work function, suggesting that the o-BN monolayer possesses excellent selectivity and sensitivity to NO ₂molecule. In addition, we use first principles combined with non-equilibrium Green’s function to simulate the electrical transport properties of monolayered o-BN semiconductor based nanodevice with adsorption of typical toxic gas molecules. The I-V _bcurve shows that the current through the nanodevice is 6500 nA for the NO ₂molecule adsorbing system under 1 V bias voltage. The calculation results reveal that the adsorption of NO ₂molecule on the o-BN monolayer can significantly enhance its electrical transport performance, and the o-BN monolayer possesses excellent sensitivity and selectivity to the NO ₂gas molecule. The work function and the charge transfer can be effectively manipulated by tensile strain, indicating its potential application in anisotropic electronics. Our results indicate that the o-BN monolayer has excellent adsorption performance to toxic gases, showing its practical application in capturing toxic gas molecules as a gas sensor in future.