The present study has been initiated to investigate the adsorption potential of CuO nanoparticles for the removal of Pb+2 and Cd+2 ions from aqueous solution. Reported precipitation method has been used for the synthesis of CuO nanoparticles and characterisation has been done using XRD, UV spectroscopy and TEM. The average crystalline size has been found to be 19.96 nm using XRD which is well agreed with TEM. In order to obtain optimum set of conditions for maximum removal, batch adsorption experiments have been conducted at varying metal ion concentration (30-300 mg/L), contact time (15-180), adsorbent dosage and pH 3-12 for lead and 3-9 for cadmium. The equilibrium adsorption data obtained for maximum removal has been subjected to various isotherm models. A study of isotherm error analysis has been performed to evaluate the errors in applied isotherm curves, which shows that Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models fitted well to experimental data as compared to Temkin isotherm model. Study of adsorption kinetic models suggests that adsorption process follows pseudo second order kinetics for both the metal ions. A study of intraparticle diffusion shows that the intraparticle diffusion occurs but is not the rate determining step.