A metal fiber bed has seldom been applied to the practical filtration process despite its excellent mechanical and chemical stability. The filter-bed used in this work was highly porous with open structure, of which apparent porosity was 80 ∼ 90%. Although pressure loss across the filter-bed was very low, separation efficiency was found to be quite high. This paper focuses on the basic filtration mechanisms of a metal filter-bed and a thin ceramic filter from fly ash for reference. The experimental parameters were face velocity, dust loading and porosity of filter-bed. Pressure drop increased with increasing face velocity and dust feeding load for both filters. It also showed that dust particles deposited in the deep flow path, finally resulting in clogging the pore channels. It thereby indicates that the dominating mechanism of the metal filter-bed would be depth filtration. Meanwhile, the thin fly ash composite filters trapped the aerated dust mainly on the surface of the filter medium, so that the instantaneously formed dust layer might cause a steep increase of pressure drop across the filtration system.