In this investigation, the adsorption measure of linezolid antibiotic onto MgO nanoparticles and ZnO-MgO nanocomposites were performed. The adsorbents were characterized by different techniques such as XRD, SEM, TEM and BET. The parameters influence such as the pH, adsorbent dosage and temperature was tested and evaluated by Box-Behnken Design combined with response surface methodology. Performing adsorption tests at optimal conditions set as 0.5 g L-1 of adsorbent, pH 10 and 308K make admit to obtain high adsorption turnover (123.45 and 140.28 mgg(-1) for MgO nanoparticles and ZnO-MgO nanocomposites, respectively). A good compromise between predicted and experimental data in this research was observed. The experimental equilibrium data fitting to Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich models indicate that the Langmuir model is a best model for evaluation of adsorption behavior. Kinetic evaluation of experimental data indicated that the adsorption operations followed well pseudo-second-order models. The adsorption capacity of ZnO-MgO nanocomposites is higher than MgO nanoparticles that because of the ZnO-MgO nanocomposites have high specific surface area. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.