With more and more attention of the public shifting toward environmental concern, governments around the world are acting by implementing more stringent emission standards for particulate matter and NOx from diesel engine exhaust. Diesel engines have the highest engine efficiency of any practical combustion engine design, having a 30 percent better fuel economy and 25 percent less CO2 emissions than gasoline engines. However, the incomplete combustion of diesel engines generates hazardous emissions such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), hydrocarbons (HC), CO, CO2, and particulate matter (PM). Among them, particulate matter, especially PM2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 micrometer or less in diameter) and PM10 (particulate matter 10 micrometer or less in diameter) cause serious environmental and health problems, due to their tiny size and chemical composition. Among the technologies being considered to reduce emissions, particulate trapping technology is of great interest. A diesel particulate filter (DPF) is an emission reduction unit which removes particulate matter or soot from the exhaust gas of a diesel engine. Normally, a diesel particulate filter is positioned in the downstream of the diesel engine in order to collect solid particulate emissions while allowing the exhaust gases to pass through the system, and usually remove up to 99 percent of the soot from the diesel exhaust. However, the soot accumulated in the DPF need to be removed periodically to maintain the engine performance. Current catalyst technology utilizes expensive platinum group metals (PGM) on DPF components. In the aim of reducing expense, there is urgent need for a novel low-cost catalyst for use in DPF.Novel KCS glass catalyst developed by previous researchers in our group shows excellent catalytic activity with soot oxidation temperature as low as 380℃, however partial catalytic deactivation was measured after prolonged exposure to harsh diesel exhaust environment. To further the study of K-glass catalysts, this dissertation will investigate various compositional changes to the KCS glass. The effect of Ce, Zr, La and Ag chemical substitutions on the K-based glass catalyst soot oxidation kinetics were examined. In addition, the effect of contact conditions and the effect of catalyst/soot ratios on the soot oxidation reaction were also investigated using temperature -programmed oxidation (TPO) thermogravimetric experiments.Mullite filters show superior performance in the soot combustion due to its needle structure providing higher surface area (~2.5 times) than the smooth monolith cordierite filter. However, mullite filters are not commercially used since its expensive cost, this dissertation will explore several approaches for fabricating a porous glass catalyst coating on the smooth monolith walls of cordierite filter aiming to increase the catalyzed surface area in a cordierite filter by a low cost, simple technique.