Diesel engines are important for heavy-duty vehicles. However, particulate matter (PM) released from diesel exhaust should be eliminated. Nowadays, catalytic diesel particulate filters (CDPF) are recognized as a promising technology. In this work, a series of monolith Mn1−nKnCo2O4 catalysts were prepared by the simple citric acid method. The as-prepared catalysts displayed good catalytic performance for soot combustion and the Mn0.7K0.3Co2O4 catalyst gave the best catalytic performance among all the prepared samples. The T10 and Tm of Mn0.7K0.3Co2O4-HC catalyst for soot combustion are 310 and 439 °C, respectively. The physical and chemical properties of catalysts were characterized by means of SEM, XPS, H2-TPR, Raman and other techniques. The characterization results indicate that K substitution is favorable for the formation of oxygen vacancies, enhancing the mobility of active oxygen species, and improving the redox properties and so on. In-situ Raman results prove that the strength of Co-O bonds in the catalysts became weak during the reaction at high temperatures. In addition, SEM and ultrasonic test results show that the peeling rate of the coat-layer is less than 5%. The as-prepared catalysts can be taken as one kind of candidate catalyst for promising application in soot combustion because of its facile synthesis, low cost and high catalytic activity.