COMBINED ASBR AND ADSORBENT FOR BIOLOGICAL TREATMENT OF DILUTED POME

Palm Oil Mill Eftluent (POME) and Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) are two most abundant
wastes produced in a palm oil mill. However, current method of treatment ofPOME and
composting of EFB are insufficient in promoting an environmental friendly strategy for
future sustainability. POME is believed to be one of the major contributors towards river
pollution in Malaysia due to its high strength constituents. The EFB on the other hand,
has also becomes an issue regarding the massive solid wastes production that causes
insufficient amount of landfill for its disposal. Therefore, it is very crucial to find other
solution to cater these issues effectively. This study will determine the COD removal of
the ASBR, ASBR+PAC and ASBR+EFB combined system in treating diluted POME. It
will also determine the potential ofEFB to function as adsorbent in the ASBR combined
system. Three conical flasks; Rl, R2 and R3 with working volume of 1.0 L are filled
with 700 mL of sludge and 300 mL of POME. They are operated under ASBR
condition. R1 is as the control condition; operated without any addition of PAC or EFB.
R2 is added with 3 giL dose of commercial PAC while R3 will be added with 3g/L of
EFB. The three ASBRs are operated with Cycle Time (CT) of 6 hours; 4 cycles per day
with Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) of 24 hours. The Cycle Time consists of feeding
(15 minutes), reacting (255 minutes), settling (60 minutes), decanting (15 minutes) and
idling (15 minutes) phase. All three reactors have similar Organic Loading Rate (OLR)
of 1.608 kg COD/m3/day in order to compare the treatment efficiency of all three
conditions. The three reactors are operated under room temperature with the pH
maintained between pH of6 to 8. The initial Food to Microorganism Ratio (FIM) is 0.1.
From the experiments, Rl (ASBR) manages to obtain highest total COD removal
efficiency of 91.4% at day 41 while R2 (ASBR+PAC) managed to achieve up to 95.1%
removal for the same day. The highest COD removal efficiency for R3 (ASBR+EFB)
however is slightly lower at 85.8% in day 29. This study proves that EFB alone cannot
contribute towards better wastewater constituent adsorption.