The aim of study is soot reduction strategy by using microwave radiation. As a first step toward the aim is a review. This study provides a review of soot particles generation and their influence on air pollution and illustrates the diesel particulate matter emission regulation, composition, and characterization including size, shape, process, and oxidation. The paper also discusses the effect of temperature, pressure, air/fuel ratio, exhaust flow rate, fuel type on soot process and heat release from soot combustion. The use of filter regeneration strategies for reducing soot emission from vehicles, stationary plants and factories due to the burning of diesel fuel have been presented with advantage and disadvantage of each method. The various strategies include catalyst, fuel injection, electric heating, engine operation condition control, non-thermal plasma, and absorbed microwave energy. The practical feasibility for soot oxidation by microwave heating technique has been explained depending on soot material property. The proposed new technique utilizing the reflected and absorbed energies of microwave for soot reduction strategy is presented to develop a new emission after-treatment system. The new system will be modeled and simulated using appropriate software. The simulation results will be validated experimentally. © 2012 Asian Network for Scientific Information.