Natural organic matter (NOM) fouling has been known as a significant challenge in membrane applications. In this work, Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were utilized as nano-absorbent to mitigate the NOM fouling in ultrafiltration. The main objective of this work is to investigate the influence of interaction between NOM and ZnO nanoparticles on membrane fouling propensity. In this context, ZnO was added into an ultrafiltration system used to treat flower soil surrogate extract rich in NOM. Additional run of ultrafiltration with ZnO suspension and flower soil extract each alone as feed solution were also performed. This was intended to study the membrane fouling behavior caused by single pollutants as well as their combination. It was observed that fouling was mitigated with the addition of ZnO, probably due to the interaction between NOM and ZnO nanoparticles.