The applications of porous media burners are of often keen interest to researchers because of many modern advantages, such as high thermal efficiency, stable flame and low emission rate. In this current experimental work, a microburner was made built to achieve both surface and submerged flame for three different thicknesses of reaction layers. A reaction layer of discrete alumina with a predefined thickness of preheat layer was used for combustion. Reaction layer was accordingly replaced with different thicknesses of 10mm, 20mm and 30mm. This work mainly aimed to show burner behavior with increase in thickness of reaction layer thus suggesting the optimum equivalence ratio from best burner performance. Interesting and unique behavior of the burner was encountered for each thickness of the reaction layer. Highest surface temperature was found out with 10mm of reaction layer, while highest wall temperature was incorporated with 20mm of reaction layer. Equivalence ratio of 0.3 is best suitable for optimum performance of the burner. Finally, thermal efficiencies were calculated for surface and submerged modes at optimum equivalence ratio. Emission parameters, such as NOx and CO were also taken into consideration. © 2017 Author(s).