Although Africa has high potential of water resources, access to drinking water is limited today. Thus, ceramic membrane derived from kaolin has been successfully developed using combined phase inversion and sintering technique for desalination application. However, much of the kaolin was made unusable for commercial application due to its impurities like, mainly iron oxide and hence the reduction in whiteness of products and fouling effect. This iron content of industrial minerals can be reduced by physical and chemical processing. Chemical processing is very efficient and frequently used to achieve a high degree of iron removal. Both inorganic and organic acids have been used for clay refining. This research investigated the use of oxalic acid to dissolve iron oxides and the dissolution characteristics of natural iron oxides. Natural kaolin calcinated at 700◦C for 3h was refluxed with oxalic acid of different concentrations (0.19 M, 0.38 M, and 0.43M) and reaction temperature (80◦C, 90◦C, 100◦C) for 1h. The effect of contact time has also been investigated further after getting optimal concentration and temperature for high iron oxide dissolution Therefore, the aim of this study was to synthesize and characterize acid activated meta-kaolin based ceramic membrane for membrane distillation application (MD). Comprehensive physico-chemical characteristics of acid leached kaolinite clay were studied by DLS, XRF, XRD, FTIR, TGA, DTA, SEM and membrane characterization techniques like SEM, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength and salt removal taste also have been studied in this work. The DLS analysis shows that the average particle size of purified raw kaolin has found to be 1.016 µM while XRF and FTIR studies indicate that acid treatment under reflux conditions leads to a substantial removal of iron oxide and reduced from 3.5 w/w % to 0.62 w/w % (82.23 % wt removal) at optimal iron dissolution parameters (T= 100 o C, Acid concentration = 0.43M and 80 minutes. Consequently, intensive purification with the thermal followed by oxalic acid on fresh kaolin clay was applied until standard kaolin material has been obtained. Acid activated meta-kaolin was used as promising source of aluminum and silica oxide for ceramic membrane fabrication using phase inversion and sintering techniques. PESF and PVP has been used based on their suitability and effectiveness in imparting special mechanical strength and dispersion properties. As a result values of mechanical strength 10.3MPa, porosity 53 % and thermal conductivities values from 0.2-0.426 w/m. o C was obtained for fabricated ceramic membrane. Finally, 49-71% removal efficiency during membrane performance trial taste has been obtained using synthetic seawater (NaCl solution) as the feed. Key words: Meta-kaolin, Chemical beneficiation, Flat sheet ceramic membrane, Phase inversion and sintering, Desalination.