The Study of Semi-Continuous
Chemical Physical Treatment System for Pollutant Removal in Palm Oil Mill Effluent
Mohamad Nurul Aqilah, Hamzah Sofiah, Che Harun Mohd Hakim, Ali Asmadi and Rasit
Nazaitulshila
Res. J. Chem. Environ.; Vol. 28(5); 67-75;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/285rjce067075; (2024)
Abstract
Effluent from palm oil mill processing is a major concern due its properties and
characteristics that highly contributed to water pollution. This study reported
on POME treatment by a semi-continuous treatment system consisting of coagulation,
sedimentation and filtration processes in the presence of a by-product coagulant
(copperas combined with lime). The treatment was conducted for different types of
filter medias (FMs): a) FM 1: sand+activated carbon and b) FM 2: sand+ceramic ring)
and various retention times (RT) from 1/2 to 2 h. The treatment resulted in different
removal efficiencies of turbidity, colour, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total
suspended solids (TSS) for secondary and tertiary POME samples. With semi-continuous
treatment, the pollutants in the secondary POME sample decreased, resulting in the
removal efficiency of 57.34% for turbidity, 95.16% for colour, 82.08% for COD and
83.23% for TSS.
Meanwhile, the results of the tertiary sample were 54.81%, 81.08%, 78.05% and 68.51%
for turbidity, colour, COD and TSS removal respectively. The statistical analysis
of ANOVA (p-value<0.05) indicated that the data was statistically significant with
the FM 1 as a media filter. As a result, a semi-continous chemical-physical treatment
system may provide information in efficient POME treatment.
