The adsorption methods have great potential for the removal of heavy metal ions. So far, many substances have been used as ion exchangers that most of them are chemicals, synthetic, and expensive. Among this, the use of inexpensive, natural, and environmentally friendly materials has received less attention. In this study, 14 medicinal herb wastes and biomass of the Neurospora intermedia were used to remove lead and cadmium from aqueous solutions. In this study, after the pre-selection experiments among 14 medicinal herb wastes, the adsorption capacity of the raw chicory waste was evaluated for the removal of Pb2+ and Cd2+ from aqueous solutions. Then, to increase its efficiency, the chicory waste was modified using a calcium chloride solution. According to the results, the ion exchange capacity increased from 98 cmol kg-1 for raw waste to 118 cmol kg-1 for modified waste. Ca2+ showed the highest exchangeability with Pb2+ and Cd2+ . The amount of Calcium in raw waste was 0.974 mol kg-1 increased to 1.182 mol kg-1 with the modification of the exchanger. The removal efficiency of Pb2+ by raw and modified chicory wastes was 78.3 and 95.3%, and for cadmium was 64.7 and 73.3%, respectively. Furthermore, kinetics and equilibrium isotherm studies were conducted and demonstrated that Pb2+ and Cd2+ adsorption process followed the Langmuir isotherm and Pseudo second order kinetics. The maximum Langmuir adsorption capacities were increased from 103.1 and 53.8 mg g?1 by raw chicory waste to 123.5 and 64.5 mg g?1 by modified chicory waste for Pb2+ and Cd2+, respectively. It is noteworthy that using the modified chicory waste in galvanic industry effluent (as real wastewater) eliminated Pb2+ and Cd2+ levels at different initial concentrations in the range of 72-85% and 43-68%, respectively. Exchange of Pb2+ and Cd2+ ions with alkali metals (Na+ and K+ ) and alkali earth metals (Ca2+ and Mg2+) onto the waste surface during the removal experiments indicated that the ion exchange could be one of the most important mechanism for the removal of Pb2+ and Cd2+. Besides, the regeneration of raw and modified chicory waste loaded by Pb2+ and Cd2+ with distilled water was not possible, while eluting the waste using CaCl2 could effectively recover both metals more than 90 %. The present study was carried out to optimize the various conditions for Pb2+ and Cd2+ adsorption onto N. intermedia biomass by applying the Response Surface Method (RSM) using BoxBehnken design. The effects of process parameters such as initial Pb2+ and Cd2+ concentration (10, 30, and 50 mg L-1 ), initial solution pH (3, 4, 5 and 6), and biomass amount (0.5, 1 and 1.5 g L-1 ) on the metal adsorption were analyzed. In the quadratic models, the regression equation obtained after the ANOVA indicated the correlation coefficient (R2 ) as 0.9982 and 0.9997 for Pb2+ and Cd2+ removal of N. intermedia, respectively. Thus, the high R2 value, insignificant lack-of-fit p-value ( 0.05), and significant models P-value ( 0.0001) indicating its high adequacy and validity of models in predicting the Pb2+ and Cd2+ removal percentage by N. intermedia. Therefore, these models were used for further analysis. On the basis, the Pb2+ and Cd2+ removal efficiency onto this fungal biomass was increased with a decrease in initial solution concentration, and an increase in initial solution pH, and biomass amount. In the optimum experimental conditions, the results showed that maximum Pb2+ and Cd2+ adsorption capacity of N. intermedia biomass from aqueous suspensions were 200 and 61.35 mg g-1, respectively. In these conditions, the pseudo-second order kinetic and the Langmuir isotherm models could much better explain the adsorption of Pb2+ and Cd2+. These findings revealed that the chicory waste and N. intermedia could be promising and low-cost adsorbents for the removal of heavy metals from the water and wastewater. Keywords: Chicory, Fungi, Adsorption, Chemical modification, Lead, Cadmium, Wastewate