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Abstract
Wong, P.W., Sulaiman, N.M., Nachiappan, M. and Varadaraj, B.
Pre-treatment and membrane ultrafiltration using
treated palm oil mill effluent (POME)
Songklanakarin J. Sci. Technol., 2002, 24(Suppl.) : 891-898
Treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) has always been a topic of research in Malaysia. This
effluent that is extremely rich in organic content needs to be properly treated to minimize environmental
hazards before it is released into watercourses. The common practice for treating POME in Malaysia in-
volves a combination of aerobic and anaerobic methods. The purpose of tertiary treatment is to allow the
treated water to be reused in the mill operations for other purposes such as feed water. The proposed
treatment will also ensure the industry to meet a more stringent discharge standard in terms of the BOD,
COD and nitrogen values. In this study membrane ultrafiltration is used as the tertiary treatment method.
Before the actual membrane operation was conducted, the samples were pre-treated using three separate
method namely filtration, centrifugation and coagulation. It was found that the combination of filtration-
ultrafiltration treatment POME produced the best-treated sample quality in terms of pollutant contents
elimination, namely % BOD, % COD and % nitrogen removal.
Palm oil industry is at present, the largest Based on the statistical value of total crude
agro-based industry in Malaysia. It accounts for palm oil production in May 2001, the production
49.5% of world production and 64.5% of world of 985,063 tonnes of crude palm oil means a
exports in 1998. In that year alone, Malaysia total of 1,477,595 m3 of water was used, and
produced 7,425,000 tonnes of palm oil for world- 738,797 m3 was released as POME, in that month
wide export (Industrial Processes and The En- alone. Without proper treatment, this wastewater
vironment Handbook No.3, 1999), which was will pollute watercourses receiving it.
approximately 618,750 tonnes per month. In The current treatment technology of POME
May 2001, the amount of crude palm oil produc- typically consists of biological aerobic and an-
tion increased, hitting a high of 985,063 tonnes aerobic digestion. Biologically treated effluent is
(Palm Oil Link, 2001). disposed of via land application system, thus
Given this huge amount of palm oil pro- providing essential nutrients for growing plants.
duction, the quantity of resources needed and the This method may be a good choice for disposal
quantity of wastes produced are therefore ex- of treated effluent. However, considering the rate
pected to be great. A typical palm oil mill releases of daily wastewater production, for example,
liquid effluent, known as palm oil mill effluent approximately 26 m3 per day for an average palm
(POME), gaseous emissions from boilers and oil mill with an operating capacity of 35 tonnes
incinerators, solid waste materials and by-pro- FFB per day, it is doubtful that the surrounding
ducts that include empty fruit bunches (EFB), plantations receiving it could efficiently absorb
potash ash, palm kernel, fiber and shells. These all the treated effluent.
wastes, if not disposed of properly, will have Another new technology under research is
great impacts on the surrounding environment. the zero waste evaporation technology. By eva-
Wastewater that is not treated properly will porating the POME, water can be recovered while
lead to water pollution. Inappropriate handling the residual solid content can be utilized as ferti-
and disposal of solid wastes from boilers, incin- lizer. Although this method reclaims about 80%
erators, and sludge separators will cause environ- of water from POME, a major drawback is the
mental degradation such as air pollution, noise high energy requirement (Ma, 1996).
pollution and odour emission. Since the ultimate goal of wastewater man-
Compared to gaseous emissions and solid agement is towards zero discharge, the best waste-
waste production, water and wastewater manage- water treatment scheme is inevitably a treatment
ment in crude palm oil mills has long been a that allows 100% reuse and recycling of waste-
topic of research and discussion. This is due to water. If one considers the volume of water needed
the large amount of water needed for palm oil mill by the crude palm oil milling industry, the practice
extraction and the indiscriminate discharge of of releasing treated wastewater without further re-
untreated or partially treated POME into public use in-house is a wasteful exercise.
watercourses. Another alternative to minimize fresh water
and energy consumption is to reuse wastewater
POME treatment technology directly from the final treatment pond. This could
During the processing of fresh fruit bunches be as feed water for boiler or hydro cyclone. How-
(FFB), water is the most needed resource. To ever, if this is the solution, a higher quality of treated
process one tonne of FFB, typically 1.5 m3 of water is required especially when it is to be used
water is used (Industrial Processes and The En- as boiler feed water. The current treatment system
vironment Handbook No.3, 1999). Out of this of anaerobic followed by aerobic degradation is
amount, 50% will be released as POME and the not capable of producing such high quality treated
rest of the water is lost as steam and boiler blow effluent.
down, wash waters and leakage. A possible technological solution to pro-
Songklanakarin J. Sci. Technol. Palm oil mill effluent (POME)
Vol. 24 (Suppl.) 2002 : Membrane Sci. &Tech. 893 Wong, P.W., et al.
duce higher quality effluent is through the use of (i) Pre-treatment of samples
membrane technology at the tertiary treatment Three types of pre-treatment were ap-
stage. Membrane treatment is capable of provid- plied separately to compare the effectiveness of
ing a highly efficient treatment, requires minimal each treatment. These treatments were:
energy, and does not introduce any additives to A) Filtration
the waste stream. B) Centrifugation
There are many membrane process applica- C) Coagulation
tions on water and wastewater treatment that has
proven to be efficient. Membrane technology (ii) Stirred-cell ultrafiltration
covers a large spectrum of separation techniques, After pre-treatment, samples were ul-
ranging from reverse osmosis to microfiltration. trafiltered using a bench-scale stirred cell ultrafil-
Among the various membrane processing techno- tration unit (Spectrum Molecular/Por Stirred Cell-
logies, ultrafiltration offers an attractive option for Model No.20062). The membrane material used
wastewater treatment. It is a low pressure-driven was 76-mm Spectrum Cellulose Ester Disc with
membrane process retaining most effectively MWCO of 5000. A few aspects were studied.
macromolecules sized within 0.001 – 0.02 µm. The following parameters were investigated:
Although the biologically treated POME is a) Pure water flux
already low in biodegradable organic contents, it Pure water flux characteristics for the
still possesses significant amount of persistent membrane was obtained by filtering deionised
cellulosic materials and oily residues that usually water at an increment of every 1 bar of trans-
occur in the form of macromolecules. membrane pressure (from 1 bar to 7 bar).
With membrane ultrafiltration, these mol- b) Sample Flux
ecules could be separated from the waste stream Flux for each pre-treated sample was
thus producing a higher quality effluent. In this obtained for comparison purpose. The flux was
research project, a study has been carried out to observed in the range of 1 bar to 7 bar of trans-
examine the feasibility of using membrane ultra- membrane pressure.
filtration for the final treatment of POME ex- c) Variation of pH value of sample
tracted from the aerobic treatment pond. The gen- In order to investigate the effect of pH
eral objectives are to value on rejection characteristics (COD, total sol-
(i) Evaluate the effectiveness of membrane ids, suspended solids, ammoniacal nitrogen, total
ultrafiltration of treated POME and nitrogen and colour), ultrafiltration of filtered and
(ii) Investigate the possibilities of water centrifuged samples were conducted at two dif-
reuse and water recycling of the mem- ferent pH values at transmembrane pressures of
brane-filtered treated POME. 4.5 bar and 7.0 bar. The two pH values were pH 8
(original value of effluent) and pH 2.2 (pH at
Methodology iso-electric point of cellulose membrane)(Bowen
and Clark, 1984).
The experimental part of this study followed Ultrafiltration of the sample that was pre-
the sequence as shown below: treated with coagulation technique was lastly car-
ried out at the pH value that gave better rejec-
Sample collection tion characteristics on the filtered and coagulated
An adequate quantity of sample was col- samples.
lected from a palm oil mill. A portion of the raw d) Variation of transmembrane pressure
sample was preserved and the characteristics of To study the effect of pressure on rejec-
the raw sample were analysed. tion characteristics, samples pre-treated using fil-
Songklanakarin J. Sci. Technol. Palm oil mill effluent (POME)
Vol. 24 (Suppl.) 2002 : Membrane Sci. &Tech. 894 Wong, P.W., et al.
tration and centrifugation methods were ards for Crude Palm Oil Mills, 1984) before being
ultrafiltered at 2 different values of TMP. Dupli- released into watercourses. The parameters are
cate runs for each sample at TMP of 4.5 bar and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Ammoniacal
7.0 bar were undertaken. The TMP that gave the Nitrogen (AN), Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN),
better rejection characteristics was then applied for suspended solids (SS), turbidity and colour.
ultrafiltration of the sample that was pre-treated
using the coagulation technique. Results and Discussion
treated parameters, with percentage removal next parameter, COD, could only be treated to a
reaching 99.2%, 7.9% and 98.2% respectively. concentration of 591 mg/L from the initial 1336
COD level was reduced to less than 200 mg/L mg/L, which was 55.8% removal. Total nitrogen
from the original 1336 mg/L. Total nitrogen con- was at a level of 39.5 mg/L after treatment while
centration was 25.4 mg/L after treatment, showing concentration of ammoniacal nitrogen after treat-
a 78.8% reduction. Ammoniacal nitrogen only ment was 17.2 mg/L.
recorded a 5.8 mg/L improvement, equivalent to c) Coagulation – ultrafiltration pre-
21.3% percentage reduction. treatment
b) Centrifugation – ultrafiltration pre- The third system, coagulation-ultrafiltra-
treatment tion, performed moderately compared to the pre-
For centrifugation-ultrafiltration system, vious systems. Besides the outstanding 100% re-
as shown in Figure 2, the final quality of the moval of suspended solids, removal of turbidity
treated sample was not as remarkable. Though was 77.2%, bringing the turbidity value from
elimination of suspended solids, turbidity and col- 1113 mg/L to 90 mg/L. Colour removal was 76.9%,
our content were over 90%, the final level of sus- recording a 740 PtCo of treated sample (refer
pended solids (40 mg/L), turbidity (100 mg/L) Figure 3). Reduction of COD, total nitrogen and
and colour (800 PtCo) were rather high compared ammoniacal nitrogen was 49.5%, 14.2% and
to those achieved by filtration-ultrafiltration. The 10.9% respectively.
provided the best rejection environment com- treated POME treatment to comply with regula-
pared with pH 2.2, which represented the lower tions that gets more stringent with time.
pH range. Thus, treated POME can be fed directly
to the membrane treatment plant after adequate References
cooling without any need of additives or adjust- Industrial processes and the environment (Handbook
ments on the chemical properties of the treated No.3). 1999. Crude palm oil industry, Department
POME. of Environment, Malaysia.
Filtration-ultrafiltration effluent showed Ma A. N., and Tajima Y. 1996. A novel treatment
characteristics close to the new effluent discharge process for POME, Palm Oil Research Institute
standards proposed to be implemented in year of Malaysia, Malaysia.
2005. To conclude, ultrafiltration treatment of Palm Oil Link. 2001. Vol. 11 Issue 3/6, Editorial
treated POME proved to have good potential in Dept. - POL, MPOPC, Malaysia.