There is provided an apparatus and process for manufacturing a brick or paver with a high content of coal ash (ranging from 60% to 100% coal ash or fly ash) so that a waste product (coal ash, and more particularly Class F coal ash) from a coal-fired power plant is incorporated into a building product (high content fly ash brick or paver). Also provided is a variable firing tray to support the dried, high content coal ash bricks/pavers as the dried products are sent through a tunnel kiln, to improve circulation around the individual bricks/pavers and thereby result in reduced firing time in the kiln.

An exhaust gas purification filter is configured to he disposed in an exhaust passage in a gasoline engine. The exhaust gas purification filter includes partition walls including a plurality of pores, a plurality of cells partitioned by the partition walls, and sealing portions alternately sealing ends of a plurality of the cells in the exhaust gas purification filter. The partition walls each have an average pore diameter of more than 16 μm and less than 21 μm, and have a ratio of an average surface opening diameter of the pores in a partition wall surface to the average pore diameter of the partition wall of 0.66 or more and 0.94 or less.

A porous ceramic honeycomb body (10) including intersecting walls that form channels (22) extending axially from a first end face to a second end face and layered plugs (62) comprised of a first layer (64) disposed on channel walls and a second layer (66) disposed inward toward an axial center of each respective channel on the first layer. The plugs seal at least one of a first portion of the channels at the first end face and a second portion of channels at the second end face of the porous ceramic honeycomb body.

A honeycomb structure has partition walls defining a plurality of polygonal cells which become through channels for a fluid, a structure end face vertical to an axial direction has at least two cell regions possessing mutually different cell structures and surrounded by circumferential portions, and in the cell regions adjacent to each other, to first partition walls of a first cell structure of one first cell region, second partition walls of a second cell structure of the other or second cell region are tilted.

The manufacturing method of the honeycomb structure includes a raw material preparing step of adding the powder of porous silica as the inorganic pore former to a forming raw material and kneading the forming raw material to prepare the kneaded forming raw material, an extruding step of extruding the obtained forming raw material to form a honeycomb formed body, and a firing step of firing the extruded honeycomb formed body to form a honeycomb structure containing a cordierite component, and an amount of oil to be absorbed by the porous silica to be added to the forming raw material is in a range of 50 to 190 ml/100 g, and a BET specific surface area of the porous silica is in a range of 340 to 690 m.sup.2/g.

A porous discriminating layer is formed on a ceramic support having at least one porous wall by (a) establishing a flow of a gas stream containing agglomerates of particles and (b) calcining said deposited layer to form the discriminating layer. At least a portion of the particles are of a sinter-resistant material or a sinter-resistant material precursor. The particles have a size from 0.01 to 5 microns and the agglomerates have a size of from 10 to 200 microns. This method is an inexpensive and effective route to forming a discriminating layer onto the porous wall.

The invention relates to a monolithic tangential flow separator element for separating a fluid medium for treatment, the element comprising a rectilinear rigid porous support (2) of three-dimensional structure having formed therein at least one channel (3) for passing a flow of the fluid medium for treatment in order to recover a filtrate at the peripheral surface of the support. The monolithic rigid porous support (2) includes obstacles (9) to the flow of the fluid for filtering on or in the inside wall(s)) of the channel(s), the obstacles presenting identity of material and of porous texture with the support, and also presenting continuity of material and of porous texture with the support.

The present invention relates to a tangential flow separator element for separating a fluid medium for treatment into a filtrate and a retentate, said separator element comprising a monolithic rigid porous support (2) of rectilinear structure with a plurality of channels (3) formed therein for passing a flow of the fluid medium for treatment between an inlet (6) and an outlet (7) for the retentate, in order to recover a filtrate from the outside surface (5) of the support.

According to the invention, the monolithic rigid porous support (2) defines obstacles (9) to the flow of the fluid for treatment, which obstacles extend from the inside walls (31) of said channels, are identical in material and porous texture to the support, and present continuity of material and of porous texture with the support, the obstacles (9) generating variations in the flow sections of the channels.

A porous material includes an aggregate in which oxide films are formed on surfaces of particle bodies, and a binding material that contains cordierite and binds the aggregate together in a state where pores are formed. The binding material or the oxide films contain a rare-earth component that excludes Ce.

A plugged honeycomb structure has a plurality of cells defined by partition walls to become through channels for fluid, one end of each of the predetermined cells is plugged by a plugging member, the other end of each of the residual cells is plugged by the plugging member, the partition wall is made of a cordierite component as a main component, and a value obtained by dividing Young's modulus of a plugging structure portion formed by the partition walls and the plugging member by Young's modulus of a cell structure portion formed by the partition walls is in a range of 1.05 to 2.00.