The use of bioreactor technology to treat industrial wastewater containing heavy metals has created new perspectives. Cadmium metal is one of the toxic heavy metals that have harmful effects on human health and the environment. This research work presents a comprehensive approach for aqueous cadmium removal through biosorption in a moving bed bioflm reactor (MBBR). The bacterium resistant to Cd(II) (350 mg/L) CdIW2 was selected among 8 cadmium tolerant bacteria isolated from the industrial wastewater of the metal industry. 16S rRNA gene and phenotypic analysis showed that the bacterium CdIW2 is similar to Serratia bozhouensis. The highest biosorption capacity of 65.79 mg/g was acquired in optimal conditions (30 min, pH = 6, 0.5 g/L, and 35 ◦C). The biosorption of the CdIW2 strain was consistent with the Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second order kinetic and showed the process’s spontaneous thermodynamic and endothermic results. The removal rate 91.74% of MBBR in batch mode was obtained in 72 h and 10 mg/L of Cd(II). Furthermore, continuous mode bioreactor analysis has shown high effciency at intel loading rates of 6–36 mg/L. day for cadmium removal. The second order kinetic (Grau) was chosen as the suitable model for modeling the MBBR process. Although several studies have evaluated the removal of various types of heavy metals, none of the studies involved the use of a metal-resistant strain in an MBBR bioreactor
