The hydrophobically modified ceramic membranes have great potential for energy-efficient membrane distillation. In this work

flat-sheet ceramic membranes with a superhydrophobic surface were fabricated by grafting 1

H

1

H

2

H

2

H

-perfluorooctyltrichlorosilane or 1

H

1

H

2

H

2

H

-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane and followed by ultraviolet irradiation. The surface water contact angle was improved from 46° of original ceramic membrane to 159°

which exhibited a stable and excellent superhydrophobic effect. The modified membranes showed a high flux of 27.28 kg·m

-2

·h

-1

and simultaneously maintained an excellent retention rate of 99.99%

when used in vacuum membrane distillation process for treatment of a 1 wt% NaCl (75℃) aqueous solution. These results suggested that superhydrophobic modification of ceramic surface is a facile and cost-effective way to achieve higher membrane distillation performance. The superhydrophobically-modified ceramic membrane with an excellent desalination capacity would show considerable potential in practical membrane distillation utilizations.