Pharmaceutical compounds are considered emerging environmental pollutants that have a potential harmful impact on environment and human health. This work aims treat the tramadol hydrochloride (TH) in different water resources in Egypt. The identification and quantification of TH was explored using LC/MS/MS spectrometer. The study proposed kaolinite/ZnO nanocomposite as a new solution for TH treatment. The characterization study showed that the highest photodegradation activity was reached in the case of K/ZnO40%. The photodegradation kinetics and thermodynamics are investigated. The obtained results reveal that Pseudo-first order model is well fitted with a correlation coefficient (0.990). Moreover, the positive values of ΔH˚ and ΔS˚ show that the photodegradation process is endothermic. Positive value of free energy indicates that the adsorption process is not spontaneous.