Waste management and water quality are two of the main problems that humanity faces nowadays. Increased urbanization and industrialization lead to excessive release of wastes into the environment, including fly ash resulted from coal combustion. Fly ash reuse in developing low cost, efficient adsorbents of zeolite-type could support wastewater treatment according to the concept wastes for waste treatment. The ashes converted in zeolite materials were collected from two Combined Heat and Power Plants (CET Brasov and DEVA) from Romania. The zeolite materials were characterized by AFM, XRD, FT-IR, SEM, BET and surface energy measurements to outline the crystalline and morphology modifications. The zeolite-type substrates were obtained by using the fly ashes modified through hydrothermal processes using a low concentration of NaOH, and were further used for heavy metals removal (Cd2+, Ni2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, Pb2+) from synthetic solutions with mono-, bi-, and five cations. In order to obtain maximum efficiency during the heavy metals removal of the adsorption conditions (contact time, optimum amount of substrate and initial concentration) were optimized. These parameters were further used in the thermodynamic and kinetic modelling of the adsorption processes. Correlated with the surface structure, composition and morphology, the kinetic adsorption mechanisms and the substrate capacities are further discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.