Background There has been a surge of interest in the preparation of membranes for clinical applications, chiefly for hemodialysis and hemofiltration. Despite numerous benefits, the exploitation of polymeric materials for dialysis membrane preparation remains unsatisfactory due to lack of proper physicochemical properties and biocompatibility. Therefore, this work focuses on the preparation of a ceramic membrane in a tubular configuration using an extrusion method and a clay material mixture. The biocompatibility of the membrane as well as its structural properties were studied. Results The porosity, permeability and pore size of the membrane were 39 ± 0.88%, 203 ± 0.51 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 and 304 ± 1.20 nm, respectively. The corrosion tolerance of the membrane was found to be better in acidic, alkaline and chlorine solutions. The protein adsorption, hemolysis and platelet adhesion were 2.1 ± 0.03 μg cm−2, 1.02 ± 0.01% and 6856 ± 84 platelets mm−2, respectively. The membrane demonstrated a prolonged blood coagulation time (PT = 18 ± 0.33 s and APTT = 70 ± 0.57 s), a 171 ± 0.57 s whole blood clotting time and complement activation of 805 ± 1.3 mg L−1 for C3 and 247.3 ± 0.98 mg L−1 for C4. During synthetic blood filtration, the membrane had sieving coefficients of 0.98 ± 0.005, 0.97 ± 0.008 and 0.93 ± 0.005 for creatinine, urea and phosphate, respectively. Finally, the membrane revealed a protein rejection of about 56 ± 0.57%. Conclusions The overall findings indicated that the prepared tubular membrane with excellent biocompatibility and uremic toxin removal can be used for hemofiltration application as an alternative to hemodialysis. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).