Ordered mesoporous Co3O4 has been synthesized by nanocasting from three-dimensional cubic KIT-6 template The cobalt precursor is introduced into the silica pores by the "bi-solvent" method The structure and textural characteristics are investigated by X-ray diffraction. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption at 77K By changing the hydrothermal temperature of the KIT-6 template, two kinds of Co3O4 replicas with different mesostructured symmetries are obtained Mesopoious Co3O4 oxides prepared from KIT-6 aged at low temperature have uncoupled sub-frameworks while mesoporous Co3O4 oxides prepared from KIT-6 aged at high temperature possess coupled sub-frameworks CO oxidation is carried out as a model reaction to evaluate the catalytic activity Co3O4 replicas with uncoupled sub-frameworks which possess higher surface area and more open pole system exhibit better performance than Co3O4 replicas with coupled sub-frameworks The light-off temperature of CO oxidation reaches as low as 68 degrees C with a space velocity of 120.000 mL h(-1) g(cal)(-1) over the uncoupled Co3O4 replica Calcination temperature of the cobalt precursor only has negligible or slight impact on the catalytic activity (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved