Patent ID: 7276276

Claim:
A method for producing a honeycomb structure having an outer wall and a cell structure comprising a plurality of cells serving as fluid flowing channels and partitioned by partition walls, the method comprising: preparing a material for forming the outer wall using at least one material selected from the group consisting of talc, calcined talc, kaolin, calcined kaolin, alumina, aluminum hydroxide, mullite and silica, in proportions such that, after firing, the material for forming outer wall contains cordierite as a main component and contains a quartz powder in an amount of 1-15% by mass based on the whole material for forming outer wall; forming the outer wall from the material by disposing the material on the outer peripheral surface of the cell structure, the material configured, such that the absolute value of the difference between the proportion of shrinkage in the size of a cell structure after firing to the size of the cell structure before firing and the proportion of shrinkage in the size of the material for forming outer wall after firing to the size of the material for forming outer wall before firing is not more than 0.5%; and firing the cell structure with the material for the outer wall disposed thereto, to produce the honeycomb structure, wherein, the cell structure after firing has a section formed by cutting along a plane perpendicular to the central axis whose maximum diameter is 150 mm or more, and wherein kaolin is used as a raw material for the cell structure and the material for forming outer wall, wherein an average particle diameter of kaolin used as the material for forming outer wall is 1/10 or more and ½ or less of an average particle diameter of kaolin used as the raw material for the cell structure.