In this study, the main objective is the elimination of Basic Red 46 dye by coupling two processes, adsorption on activated clay followed by photocatalysis over ZnO as photocatalyst. The adsorption was investigated under different conditions of pH, adsorbent dose, dye concentrations, and temperature. The best adsorption yield occurs at neutral pH ~ 7 within 60 min with an uptake percentage of 97% for a concentration of 25 mg/L and a dose of 0.5 g/L. The results at equilibrium were successfully described by the Langmuir model with an adsorption capacity of 175 mg/g. To investigate the mechanism of dye adsorption characteristic, the adsorption constants were determined using pseudo first order, pseudo second-order and intraparticle diffusion model. It was found that the Basic Red 46 dye adsorption is well described by the pseudo second-order kinetic. The second part of this work was dedicated to the photodegradation onto ZnO under solar irradiation of the residual BR 46 concentration, remained after adsorption. For the remaining concentrations, the removal yields reach 100% under.