Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 32 (1) March 2020, p. 1-15

DECOLOURISATION OF PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT (POME) TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES: A REVIEW

SYAHIN, M S*; W A WAN AB KARIM GHANI* and LOH, S K**

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2020.0008
Published Online: 23 March 2020
ABSTRACT

Since last decade, global demand for edible oil is growing resulting in a remarkable increase in the areas under oil crop cultivation. The Malaysian palm oil industry is one of the largest palm oil producers in the world. In processing palm oil, high volume of liquid waste known as palm oil mill effluent (POME) is generated. The increasing demands of crude palm oil has resulted in the enormous increase of the number of palm oil mills in Malaysia contributing to large amount of POME. Currently, treatment technologies of POME gain a lot of attention in order to meet the standard discharge limits. The colour of POME, which previously was not an issue, is recently being highlighted and it will be incorporated in the regulation soon. Thus, this article provides review on colourants in POME and its possible decolourisation treatments. The possible decolourisation technologies that will be highlighted in this article are adsorption, coagulation and flocculation, membrane technology, microbial treatment, photocatalysis, etc. including their potential in POME colour removal efficiency.

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* Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering/Sustainable Process Engineering Research Centre (SPERC),
Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Putra Malaysia,
43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
E-mail: wanazlina@upm.edu.my

** Malaysian Palm Oil Board,
6 Persiaran Institusi, Bandar Baru Bangi,
43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.