In the present study, the ternary magnesia-magnetite-zeolite composite was prepared via a facile method. The XRD patterns and EDX-elemental mapping analysis confirmed the formation of composite with components of MgO, Fe3O4, and zeolite. The FE-SEM and TEM images, along with BET-BJH results, corroborated the construction of the composite with appropriate morphology and mesoporous structure (SBET: 68.90 m2 g-1). The VSM analysis demonstrated the ferromagnetic property of the prepared composite (Ms: 8 emu g-1). The as-prepared ternary composite was used for the adsorption of dairy effluent by ultrasound-assisted approach. The optimization of the adsorption operational parameters, employing response surface methodology (RSM), led to a swift reduction in COD (83%). The modeling of the process by artificial neural network (ANN) showed that the adsorbent dosage was the most important factor with 38.30% impact on the COD extent. The adsorption of dairy wastewater by composite was consistent with Temkin isotherm model and the kinetics data were well described by both Ho’s pseudo 2nd order and Elovich models. This indicates that the process is attributed to chemical adsorption. The studies associated with thermodynamics revealed that this process was endothermic (ΔH°> 0) and spontaneous (ΔG°< 0). Accordingly, the MgO-Fe3O4-zeolite could be considered as a potential adsorbent in reducing the COD of dairy wastewater.