a b s t r a c tThe aim of this study was to optimize aspirin removal from aqueous solutions by the UV/ ZnO photocatalytic process. To this end, the RSM software was used to design the test method. The influence of effective parameters including aspirin initial concentration (10-100 mg/L), pH solution (3-11), contact time (10-120 min) and ZnO catalyst dose (100-600 mg/L) was investigated in this process. Based on the results, the highest efficiency of aspirin removal equal to 83.11% was obtained in optimum conditions including solution pH = 5.05, contact time = 90.50 min, ZnO catalyst dose = 375.16 mg/L, and aspirin initial concentration = 33.84 mg/L. Increasing chloride and phosphate ion concentration in a synthetic solution under optimum conditions caused increased and decreased UV/ZnO process efficiency, respectively. The kinetic studies showed that the pseudo-first-order model had the highest correlation with aspirin removal using the UV/ZnO photocatalytic process (R 2 = 0.99). The UV/ZnO photocatalytic process has a high potential for aspirin removal from aqueous solutions and can be used as a convenient option with high performance, low cost and easy operation on an operational scale.