Biomethanation Of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) By Ultrasonic-Membrane Anaerobic System (UMAS)

Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is the wastewater produced during the production of \npalm oil. POME is a brownish, colloidal suspension that can cause severe damage to \nenvironment because of its high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochem \nical \noxygen demand (BOD). POME often released at high temperature (70 \n- \n80°C) and has \npH values between 3.5 and 4.5. In this study, Ultrasonic \n- \nMembrane Anaerobic system \nwas used as a cost \n- \neffective design to treat POME while methane gas was collected \nfrom th \ne biomethanation process. POME was continuously feed into an anaerobic \nreactor and pH was maintained at 1.75 bar. Temperature was maintained between 30 \nand 35°C. Samples from reactor and permeate were collected after 5 hours of operation \nfor the analysis o \nf COD, BOD, total suspended solids (TSS) and volatile suspended \nsolids (VSS). At the end of 5 hours operation, biogas was collected from the top of 200 \nlitres of UMAS reactor using a designated syringe. Throughout the experiment, the \nCOD and BOD removal ef \nficiencies were 66.06% and 96.88% respectively. 94.24% of \ntotal suspended solids removal was achieved at 10 days of hydraulic retention time. The \nmethane gas production efficiency was 83.61%. The membrane fouling problem \nreduced and the treatment of POME w \nas improved by UMAS introduction.