A scientific study conducted by Ayat Al-Maliki, Dr. Dunya Ali Hussein, and Zuhair Abdul-Nabi—from the Department of Ecology (College of Science) and the Department of Marine Chemistry (Marine Science Center) at the University of Basrah—investigated the efficiency of a novel composite nanomaterial in removing anionic dyes from water.

Published in the *Basrah Journal of Science*, the study demonstrated the feasibility of preparing a composite adsorbent material based on activated carbon, iron oxide, and zinc oxide (AC–Fe₂O₃/ZnO). The activated carbon was produced from plastic waste, while the metal oxides were prepared using the co-precipitation method.

The study involved characterizing the structural and physicochemical properties of the prepared material using FTIR, XRD, BET, EDX, and SEM techniques, as well as measuring zeta potential and conducting batch adsorption experiments under various operational conditions.

The results indicated that the removal efficiency for the two dyes reached 77.17% under optimal conditions, and adsorption isotherm analyses revealed that the Freundlich model best described the adsorption process.