Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermally driven membranous process and in the recent years, it has received increasing attention in desalination. Generally, polymeric membranes have dominated the MD studies due to their intrinsic hydrophobic properties and high availability. On the other hand, the development of ceramic membranes for MD desalination is developing, gradually replacing their polymeric counterparts due to superior properties in terms of thermal, chemical and mechanical stabilities, as well as potentially longer service terms. This review describes and evaluates the fabrication methods of ceramic membranes as well as discusses the latest discoveries of ceramic membranes for MD desalination. Despite outstanding properties, the efforts in developing ceramic membranes as a replacement for polymeric membranes in MD desalination are meeting challenges and obstacles; hence, in the last part of this article, the current challenges and future research opportunities of ceramic membrane development will also be addressed.

膜蒸馏（MD）是一个热驱动的膜工艺，近年来，它在脱盐方面受到越来越多的关注。通常，聚合物膜由于其固有的疏水性和高可用性而主导了MD研究。另一方面，用于MD脱盐的陶瓷膜的开发正在发展，由于在热，化学和机械稳定性以及潜在的更长的使用期限方面的优异性能，逐渐取代了其聚合物对应物。这篇综述描述和评估了陶瓷膜的制造方法，并讨论了用于MD脱盐的陶瓷膜的最新发现。尽管性能出色，开发陶瓷膜以替代MD脱盐中的聚合物膜的努力正面临挑战和障碍；因此，在本文的最后部分，还将探讨陶瓷膜开发的当前挑战和未来的研究机会。