Satisfying performance in Diesel soot abatement can be achieved by coupling ceramic-foam filters with carbon combustion catalysts. This paper focuses on the preparation, testing and the modelling of such reactors. A specific pilot plant, based on a conical fluidised bed of glass beads, used to disperse fixed parcels of Diesel soot into a given gas flow rate, was used to assess the pressure drop and the filtration efficiency of the foam traps as a function of the soot particle size, the soot load in the filter, as well as the superficial velocity. Then, several catalysts have been deposited into different traps, whose abatement performance was evaluated in a specific pilot. plant where an acetylene burner was used to produce a soot-laden flue gas. High abatement efficiency( > 80%), coupled with low-pressure drop across the trap (100 mmH(2)O), has been obtained by using a catalyst based on Cs4V2O7. A mathematical model is presented and validated using the experimental data obtained with catalytic and non-catalytic traps. The model agreement with the experimental data was good in both cases and particularly promising for design purposes.