Preparation, characterization, water permeability, and filtration characteristics of alumina and titania membranes on alumina and on clay supports are described. Commercial or-alumina and Gangetic silt have been used for the preparation of support disks. The effects of temperature and time of sintering on porosity and pore size distribution of the supports have been studied. A higher firing temperature reduces the porosity but increases the average pore diameter. The sol-gel technique has been used to prepare supported membranes of alumina and titania. Stability of the sols prepared was noted, and some of the sols were found to remain stable for about a year. Coating and firing cycles had to be repeated in order to get good membranes. However, SEM pictures show that cracks developed in membranes if more than five coatings were applied. The membranes had good water permeabilities. The rejection performances of the membranes were studied using bovine serum albumin of 66,000 dalton molecular weight. The dependence of the solute rejection on the coating and firing cycles for different sol concentrations was measured.