Metal oxide-based gas sensors have been widely used in portable systems for conventional gas or volatile organic compound(VOC)vapor detection because of their fascinating advantages such as low cost,easy production,compact size and convenient measuring integration.For improving gas sensing properties including sensitivity,selectivity and response speed,many novel nanostructured metal oxides have been investigated as the sensitive materials.Among them,hierarchical structures are promising because of their sufficient inter-spaces which enable gases diffusion through the inner position of the entire sensing film.Here,we provide a summary focusing on the synthesis,gas sensing properties to VOCs and sensing mechanisms of the meso-macroporous SnO_2 hierarchical structures,and a flower-like hierarchical ZnO structure consisting of porous single-crystalline nanosheets.Our review would be able to provide an understanding on the evolution and the challenges of hierarchically structured metal oxide-based gas sensors,and create some new opportunities for the development of gas-sensing techniques.
