Carbon membrane is a new type of functional inorganic separation membrane, possessing the merits of good processing and excellent physicochemical properties.Compared with traditional polymer membrane, carbon membrane has the advantage of excellent resistance to high temperature and immune to aggressive operation condition as well as good performance in anti-corrosion. To select cheap and easy available raw material and to prepare good performance carbon membrane for liquid or gas separation are the continuous research goal. Researchers are pursuing the carbon membrane possessing the high membrane flux and high selectivity simultaneously. To investigate and obtain carbon membrane catalysis reactor, carbon membrane biochemical reactor, integrated membrane process reactor and inorganic-organic composite membrane are the future direction in carbon membrane research and development.