The paper summarizes results of Gosiewski et al. (2009), Pawlaczyk and Gosiewski (2013) and Pawlaczyk (2013) kinetic studies of non-catalytic (thermal) combustion of lean methane air mixtures, carried out in a low and high temperature, in monolith bed and compared with similar results for a free space. The study reveals an influence of size, type of monolith's surface and temperature in combustion zone on the reaction mechanism and its kinetics. It was formulated a hypothesis that the share of combustion type: heterogeneous with surface effect (on the monolith's wall) and homogeneous (in the free space) depends on the temperature in the combustion zone. The appropriate kinetic equations were estimated. Moreover the paper presents corrected values of kinetic parameters which in contrast to Gosiewski et al. (2009) and Pawlaczyk and Gosiewski (2013) were estimated using concentrations of components related to actual gas volume in the combustion zone. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.