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The treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) has always been the topic of research in Malaysia due to the high concentration of total suspended solid (TSS) and oil and grease (O&G) ranges from 28 846 to 30 920 mg/L and 5614 to 8812 mg/L, respectively. Additionally, the release of methane gas during the treatment of POME in all of the palm oil mills has been the major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) effect. The main aim of this work is to evaluate the performance of the pilot-plant integrated anaerobic–aerobic bioreactor (IAAB) for POME treatment at two different phases: (a) startup and (b) long-term performance evaluation from an organic loading rate (OLR) of 10.5 to 32.5 gCOD/(L·day). Startup of the pilot-plant IAAB was successfully accomplished in 24 days with overall removal efficiencies in terms of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total suspended solid (TSS) of at least 90% at the OLR of 8.0 gCOD/(L·day). The pilot-plant IAAB achieved high BOD, COD, and TSS removal efficiencies of more than 99% for OLR up to 30.0 gCOD/(L·day) with methane yield ranges from 0.0406 LCH₄/gCODᵣₑₘₒᵥₑd to 0.1312 LCH₄/gCODᵣₑₘₒᵥₑd. The effluent quality remained stable with BOD of 16–107 mg/L with a high percent of compliance with the discharge limit of 100 mg/L. The coupling of the Grau second-order and Stover–Kincannon models (anaerobic system) with the Stover–Kincannon model (aerobic system) will completely define the pilot-plant IAAB system. This pilot-plant research will provide valuable data and experiences required to design and commission a full-scale IAAB.

Boron removal from synthetic wastewater by using palm oil mill boiler (POMB) ash impregnated with various chemical compounds (citric acid, tartaric acid, salicylic acid, barium chloride, calcium chloride anhydrous, and calcium chloride dihydrate) was being investigated in this study. The characteristics of POMB ash were analyzed based on ash content, carbon content, and BET surface area. The adsorption process was performed in a batch system with various parameters: dosage of POMB ash, residence time, shaking speed, temperature, and pH. The results show that impregnants increased the ability of POMB ash to adsorb boron, and the adsorption efficiency of boron was highly dependent on the pH. The optimization study shows that citric acid was the optimum impregnant on the POMB ash, with maximum boron removal efficiency of 65.69% at dosage of 6 g/50 mL at pH 7.0 with shaking speed of 100 rpm at 25 °C and 12 h of residence time.

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a wastewater generated from palm oil milling activities which requires effective treatment before discharge into watercourses due to its highly polluting properties. The characterization of wastewater is the essential step in the design of any wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the industry as conducting pilot-scale tests to obtain design and operating parameters is time-consuming and expensive. Characterization of POME had been conducted in various studies which only involve parameters that were listed as discharge standards by local environmental authorities and those that were significant to the results of the chosen treatment methods. Other important parameters that were seldom considered in the characterization of POME are as follows: total phosphorus (TP), total organic carbon (TOC), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total volatile solids (TVS), volatile suspended solids (VSS), lignin and sulfate concentrations, and toxicity. These parameters are very important in det...

Aerobic treatment of wastewater under thermophilic conditions has received growing interest in recent years. Because of the high discharge temperature (75 to 85 °C) of palm oil mill effluent (POME), it would be more economical if POME were treated thermophilically, as then cooling facilities prior to biological treatment can be eliminated. In the present investigation, the feasibility of thermophilic aerobic biological treatment as a suitable post-treatment system for anaerobically treated POME was examined. Also, the effects of temperature on the treated effluent quality were investigated by using sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) under mesophilic (28 °C) and thermophilic (45, 50, and 55 °C) conditions. The average total COD (TCOD) removal efficiencies varied from 55 to 98% at organic loading rates (OLR) of 2.6 to 4.5 kg COD/m3·day, dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations of 2.9−4.5 mg/L, and mixed-liquor suspended solids (MLSS) concentrations of 22500−24200 mg/L. The results show that the thermophilic aerob...

The adsorption of pretreated palm oil mill effluent (POME) onto a granular activated carbon (GAC) fixed bed has been studied using the incorporation of ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) into the homogeneous surface diffusion model (HSDM). The pretreated POME is a complex solution of a ternary system containing three major organic solutes of carbohydrate constituents, protein, and ammoniacal nitrogen. The incorporation of IAST into HSDM allows multicomponent adsorption predictions using single-solute equilibrium isortherms. Batch adsorption and fixed-bed adsorption were conducted to obtain the experimental data for a multicomponent adsorption system using pretreated POME. The residence time in the bed was varied by manipulating the bed length and the feed flowrate. On the basis of the comparison of the experimental breakthrough curves with the simulation results, IAST gives a good prediction of multicomponent adsorption on GAC when it is incorporated into HSDM.