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The rapid expansion of textile industries causes a massive release of dyes to the water bodies. The primary source of water pollution is this huge rise in dye use, which has a negative impact on aquatic life and equilibrium of the ecosystem. The purpose of the present study is the synthesis and characterization of a composite material namely zinc oxide incorporated activated carbon khat for effective adsorption of methylene blue dye. Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy, UV-Visible spectroscopy and Brunaeur, Emmett and Teller surface area analysis studies have been used to characterize the composite. Experimental conditions such as contact time, adsorbent dosage, concentration of the dye solution, solution temperature and solution pH have been altered to find out the optimum conditions of adsorption. The optimum pH has been found to be 8.0 and dosage of composite has been optimized as 0.3 g for a dye concentration of 20 ppm and equilibrium was attained at 60 min. The adsorption kinetics of the adsorbent revealed that pseudo-second-order kinetic model is better fitted with a good correlation coefficient, and the equilibrium data fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]