The Box-Behnken Design of the response surface methodology was employed to optimize four most important adsorption parameters (initial arsenic concentration, pH, adsorption temperature and time) and to investigate the interactive effects of these variables on arsenic(V) adsorption capacity of mesoporous alumina (MA). According to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and response surface analyses, the experiment data were excellent fitted to the quadratic model, and the interactive influence of initial concentration and pH on As(V) adsorption capacity was highly significant. The predicted maximum adsorption capacity was about 39.06 mg/g, and the corresponding optimal parameters of adsorption process were listed as below: time 720 min, temperature 52.8 degrees C, initial pH 3.9 and initial concentration 130 mg/L. Based on the results of arsenate species definition, FT-IR and pH change, As(V) adsorption mechanisms were proposed as follows: (1) at pH 2.0, H3AsO4 and H2AsO4- were adsorbed via hydrogen bond and electrostatic interaction, respectively; (2) at pH 6.6, arsenic species (H2AsO4- and HAsO42-) were removed via adsorption and ion exchange, (3) at pH 10.0, HAsO42- was adsorbed by MA via ion exchange together with adsorption, while AsO43- was removed by ion exchange. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.