Patent ID: 8197767

Claim:
A honeycomb structure, comprising: at least one honeycomb unit having parallel through holes separated by partition walls and extending in the longitudinal direction, the honeycomb unit being prepared by extrusion-molding and firing a material including a first SOx-occluding agent, first inorganic particles, and an inorganic binder so as to include the first SOx-occluding agent within the at least one honeycomb unit; and coating layers formed on the partition walls and including a second SOx-occluding agent and second inorganic particles, wherein the basicity of the fired material forming the honeycomb unit is higher than that of the coating layers, the first inorganic particles include the same particles as those used for the second inorganic particles and different particles with higher basicity than that of the second inorganic particles, the second inorganic particles comprise alumina, the different particles with higher basicity than that of the second inorganic particles comprise zirconia, and the first inorganic particles include between about 3 and about 30 wt % of zirconia.