Abstract Dimethylamine (DMA), which is mostly generated in fine chemical industry, has enormously threatened the public health, therefore should be eliminated from water efficiently. Superior to any other methods to remove DMA, adsorbing it by sorbent could avoid the generation of secondary pollution. Among all the sorbents employed in this study, low Si/Al ratio Beta zeolite synthesized without organic template exhibits the highest performance of adsorbing DMA from water. When the transition-metal cations were introduced by ion-exchange, the adsorption of DMA was enhanced. Subsequently, the saturated adsorbent was heated in air condition, detection results of the off-gas indicated that nearly all of the DMA adsorbed was oxidized and negligible harmful by-product was produced. Beta zeolite adsorption coupled with catalytic oxidation could eliminate DMA efficiently and environmental friendly which has wide application prospects in waterworks.