Biomethanation of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) By Ultrasonic Membrane Anaerobic System (UMAS) Using Pome as Substrate

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) with average chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of 70,000 and 30,000 mg/L, respectively, can cause serious environmental hazard if discha rged untreated. There are conventional palm oil mill eff luent (POME) treatment systems that require large f ootprint, long HRT and fail to meet the Malaysia Department of Environment (DOE) discharge limit. In this study, the potential of ultrasonic-assisted membrane anaerobic system (UMAS) was evaluated as alternative and cost effective m ethod for treating POME wastewater to avoid fouling. This stu dy also is an initiative to implement concept waste to energy by capturing methane gas. Throughout the experiment, the removal efficiency of COD was 95.55% with HRT of 6 days. The BOD removal efficiency was 71.58% while TSS removal rate was from 91 to 99.5%.The methane gas production efficiency was 94.14%. The UMAS treatment efficiency was greatly improved by UMAS introduction. The membrane fouling and polarization at the membrane surface was significantly reduced.