Chitosan and clays are both naturally occurring, plentiful minerals. A variety of technologies are used to remove pollutants from wastewater, but adsorption is thought to be the most effective, clear, efficient, economical, and sustainable. The intercalation of kaolin clay with chitosan as an adsorbent is investigated in the current study in both batch and fixed bed adsorption. The overall lead concentration in the wastewater from the paint industry was 6.215 mg/L at Kokeb Paint Factory. FTIR, XRD, and SEM were used to characterize the surface functional groups, the crystallinity of adsorbents, and the surface morphology of KIC adsorbents. Batch adsorption tests were carried out to identify the appropriate adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherm, and adsorption thermodynamics. The parameters that significantly influence the batch adsorption were (pH, initial feed concentration, and temperature). The Langmuir equilibrium isotherm provide the best fit for the experimental data, with a correlation coefficient of 0.903. Pseudo second order is the kinetics model that best fits the current lead ions adsorption system, with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. Pb (II) ion adsorption on KIC adsorbent was spontaneous at lower temperatures as compared with the higher temperature. The parameters that significantly influence the fixed-bed adsorption performance were (pH, flow rate, and initial feed concentration). The maximum fixed bed adsorption (a lead ion removal of 90.937%) was found to be at initial pH of 7.638, a flow rate of 3.304 ml/min, and an initial ion concentration of 478.234 mgL -1 , with an adsorption capacity of 40.93 mg/g. The KIC adsorbent has a breakthrough time of 14 minutes and an exhaustion time of 49 minutes. The R 2 values of the Yoon Nelson models are higher than those of the Thomas and Adams-Bohart breakthrough curves model. Thus, the YoonNelson models are the models that best fit the current lead ions adsorption system,with a correlation coefficient of 0.982. The lead-contaminated effluents from the Kokeb paint industry were treated using fixed bed adsorption. For the first four minutes, there was a very high adsorption efficiency of 98.5%. Hence, the removal of lead pollutants from wastewater via adsorption using kaolin intercalated with chitosan can be considered as a viable process. Keywords: KIC adsorbent, batch adsorption, fixed bed adsorption, Pb (II) ion, breakthrough curve