Brazilian Journal of Enviromnent
Open Access Journal
CiteScore
0.5
Indexada na
SCOPUS
QUALIS
B2
2021-2024
quadriênio
Open Access Journal
0.5
Indexada na
SCOPUS
B2
2021-2024
quadriênio
Tecnologias e Estudos Ambientais | Vol. 14 Issue 1 (2026)
Chemical Engineer with a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering and over 10 years of professional experience and 3 years in university teaching, with knowledge in: (1) Water and effluent treatment, (2) budget and work plan management, (3) knowledge and use of academic virtual platforms for research management (e.g. reference managers, statistical software, VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, etc).
Published in January 09, 2026
Arsenic contamination in drinking water remains a persistent crisis in rural and peri-urban communities in Peru, where measured concentrations frequently exceed the maximum permissible limit of 0.010 mg/L, thereby heightening public-health vulnerability. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of Citrus aurantifolia and Passiflora edulis peel flours as bioadsorbents for arsenic removal from potable water. A 4×3 factorial design (dose and contact time) was implemented and fitted with a quadratic response surface methodology (RSM) model; analytical validation was performed by ICP-OES, and statistical inference included ANOVA with a complementary general factorial model. The Passiflora edulis flour achieved removals of up to 90.2% under optimal conditions (3.92 g L⁻¹, 29.1 min), lowering the final arsenic concentration to 0.010 mg/L. By contrast, the Citrus aurantifolia flour reached a maximum removal of 56.1% at 7.76 g L⁻¹ and 49.1 min. The statistical model explained over 96% of the variability and confirmed the importance of dose and the synergistic effect of contact time, with a superior fit for Passiflora edulis (adjusted R² = 95.85%). We conclude that Passiflora edulis peel flour is an efficient, low-cost, circular-economy-aligned alternative that is viable for settings with technological constraints.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Walter Manuel Hoyos-Alayo, Jorge Luis Leiva-Piedra, José Lázaro Amaro-Mellado, Emilio Ramirez-Juidias
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-1635