Spouted bed contactor is a hybrid of fixed and fluidized bed contactors, which retains the advantages of each with good hydrodynamic conditions. The aim of the present study is to investigate the performance of a batch conical air spouted vessel for heavy metal removal by strong cation exchange resins (AMBERJET 1200 Na). The effect of various parameters such as type of heavy metal ions (Ni +2 and Pb +2 ), contact time, superficial air velocity and initial heavy metal ion concentration on % heavy metal ion removal has been investigated. It has been found that under optimum conditions 98% and 99% removal of Ni +2 and Pb +2 were achieved respectively. Several kinetic models were used to test the experimental data and to examine the controlling mechanism of the sorption process. The present results of Ni +2 and Pb +2 well fit pseudo second order kinetic model with a high correlation coefficient. Both film diffusion and intra-particle diffusion contribute to the ion exchange process. The present study revealed that spouted bed vessel may provide an effective alternative for conducting ion exchange reactions. ª 2014 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).