New mesoporous metal oxides as gas sensors Nanoporous semiconducting metal oxide materials (In2O3, WO3) with uniform pore systems, large specific surface areas (80 m2 g−1), and pore-wall crystallinity were prepared by structure replication, using KIT-6 silica as a template. The products show improved properties as gas sensors (for methane or butanone) as compared to non-porous samples. In addition, porous WO3 samples with comparable porosity (prepared by conventional ‘soft templating’, using pluronic P123), which are amorphous on the atomic length scale show poorer gas sensitivity, indicating that crystallinity is a crucial factor in the sensing process.