In this article, the ability of chaff to adsorb heavy metal ions from aqueous solution was investigated in a fixed-bed column. The effect of important parameters, such as the value of pH, the flow rate, the influent concentration of solution and the effect of coexistence ions, was studied. Also the adsorption/desorption recycles of chaff were shown, and the results indicated that chaff could be recycled to remove heavy metal ions. The Thomas model was applied to adsorption of copper and lead at different flow rate and different influent concentration to predict the breakthrough curves and to determine the characteristic parameters of the column useful for process design. The model was found suitable for describing the biosorption process of the dynamic behavior of the chaff column. All the results suggested that chaff as adsorbent to removal heavy metal ions from solution prove efficient, and the rate of biosorption process is speedy. Furthermore, the efficiency of adsorption is high. When the flow rate was 3.6 ml min(-1) and the influent concentration of copper and lead was 14.82 mg l(-1) and 50.12 mg l(-1) respectively, the equilibrium adsorption biomass reached 1.98 mg g(-1) and 6.72 mg g(-1), respectively. The competitive adsorption for lead and copper was studied. Moreover the total adsorbing capability of chaff did not decrease when there were both copper(II) and lead(II) in solution. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.