This paper described the state of art of porous metal materials, the typical manufacturing technologies and performances of sintered metal porous materials, with emphasis on the recent research achievements of CISRI in development of porous metal materials. High performance porous metal materials, such as metallic membrane, sub-micron asymmetric composite porous metal, large dimensional and structure complicated porous metal aeration cones and tube, metallic catalytic filter elements, lotus-type porous materials, etc, have been developed. Their applications in energy industry, petrochemical industry, clean coal process and other industrial fields were introduced and discussed.