The degradation of acid fuchsin solutions under microwave irradiation (MW)combined with the MgFe2O4 was studied in this work. The degradation process was investigated by UV-vis, FT-IR, TOC and ion chromatogram techniques. The results indicated that the degradation percentage of acid fuchsin could reach up to 99.78%, corresponding to 91.2% of TOC removal, and acid fuchsin had been degraded into harmless products under microwave irradiation time 1.5 min. The effects of pH, addition amount of catalysts on the efficiency of the degradation have been investigated. The mechanism of acid fuchsin degradation was also discussed. With the advantages of low cost and rapid processing, this novel MW/MgFe2O4 composite could gain promising application in the treatment of various dyestuff wastewaters on a large scale. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.