A vertical dust combustion pipeline with high-speed photography, micro-thermocouple and pressure sensor was built to investigate the influence of ceramic foam on the wheat dust explosion flame. Ceramic foams with different parameters were adopted in this paper, and compared with metal mesh. The chemical structures of dust explosion residue were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Results indicate that the wheat dust flame propagation and structure were significantly destroyed by ceramic foam. With the decreasing aperture or increasing layer, the blocking effect of ceramic foam was aggravated on the dust flame. The flame cannot pass through the ceramic foam with 20 PPI and 3 layers. On the upper end of ceramic foam, the flame temperature is positively proportional to the aperture but inversely proportional to the layers. With the PPI and layers of ceramic foam increases, the combustion pressure firstly increases and then decreases when the dust combustion intensity is strong. Ceramic foam shows the incentive effect to some extent on the combustion pressure, but the continuous inhibition effect is found for the metal mesh. (C) 2020 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.