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Elsevier, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, 2(2), p. 1174-1181

DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2014.04.018

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Investigation on micro-bubble flotation and coagulation for the treatment of anaerobically treated palm oil Mill Effluent (POME)

Journal article published in 2014 by P. E. Poh ORCID, W. Y. J. Ong, E. V. Lau ORCID, M. N. Chong
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the palm oil industry has led to the generation of large volumes of POME in Malaysia. Most conventional aerobic processes for post-treatment of POME are unable to consistently meet environmental discharge standard due to the susceptibility of microorganisms to variable climatic conditions. The main aim of this study was to investigate the potential use of micro-bubbles generated from a venturi tube and the coagulation with polyaluminium chloride (PAC) as a post-treatment method for POME. The micro-bubbles generated from the venturi are capable of removing 57.3% of Total Suspended Solid (TSS) and 74.5% of Oil and Grease (O&G) and improves the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) by 53.7% and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) by 77.0% with a bubbling time of 12.5 min and a flow rate of 19.8 L/min. However, a single-stage micro-bubble flotation is unable to treat the POME to meet environmental discharge standard. Thus, different PAC coagulant dosage are investigated and the optimum dosage is 2 g/L resulting in at least 93% of COD removal.