Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 27 (4) December 2015, p. 433-443

EFFICIENCY OF NUTRIENTS REMOVAL FROM PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT TREATMENT SYSTEMS

SOH KHEANG LOH*; WAI LOAN LIEW**; MOHD AZRAAI KASSIM** and KHALIDA MUDA‡

ABSTRACT

While most studies concentrate on organic removal from palm oil mill effluent (POME), the resulting nutrient recovery and subsequent removal from the wastewater is infrequently described. Although sporadic research has been performed to investigate nutrient removal efficiency of a single technology, the efficacy after combined with other technologies, which usually happened in industrial effluent treatment systems (IETS) has not been thoroughly checked. Hence, this study assessed the effectiveness of four IETS having different technology combination in nutrient removal. Nutrients such as total nitrogen (TN), ammoniacal nitrogen (AN) and total phosphorus (TP) from POME of these IETS were analysed. Of the four IETS investigated, the combined ponding system, anaerobic digesters and extended aeration coupled with fixed packing in activated sludge aeration tank showed the highest nutrient treatment efficiency (92.5% TN, 94.5% AN and 93.5% TP). Moving forward, POME management should gear towards sustainable recovery of essential nutrients through operative technologies.

KEYWORDS:


* Malaysian Palm Oil Board, 6 Persiaran Institusi, Bandar Baru Bangi, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia. E-mail: lohsk@mpob.gov.my

** Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.

‡ Centre for Sustainable Environment and Water Security (IPASA), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.