Patent 7468156 was granted and assigned to NGK Insulators on December, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
There is provided a method for manufacturing a porous ceramic structure, including: firing a formed body containing ceramic particles and a combustible powder functioning as a pore former, and burning off the combustible powder to obtain the porous ceramic structure. The combustible powder has an exothermic rate of 0 to 35 μV·min./mg, which is obtained from a differential thermal analysis. The method for manufacturing a porous ceramic structure can inhibit a crack from being generated during firing even without slowing down the temperature rise rate at the combustion range of the pore former or without lowering an oxygen content in the firing atmosphere.