Application of Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) for treatment of Raw Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)

Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is considered to be one of the most polluting wastewater
in Malaysia due to its high concentration in chemical oxygen demand (COD) and
biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Discharge of this wastewater will increase the
oxygen demand in water bodies and endanger the aquatic life and therefore interrupting
the ecosystem in the river. The biogas produced during treatment using conventional
stabilization anaerobic pond is released to the atmosphere and not utilized. This project is
to study the application of anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) for treatment of raw POME.
Samples were taken from Nasaruddin Palm Oil Mill, located at Bota District in Perak. An
ABR was constructed using a flexi glass sheets with the dimension of (0.48m x 0.2m x
0.29) and divided into 6 compartments. The ABR system was equipped with influent,
effluent tank, stirrer, water pump and methane gas collection chamber. Collected sludge
from the same treatment facility was used in the ABR system as seeding material. The
ABR system was initially operated with diluted factor of I :25 of the samples in order to
decrease the high value of COD with 4 days HRT and the dilution factor was continuous
decreasing by factor of 19, 15, 8, 5, 2 and lastly without any dilution. The effluent of the
system was monitored daily for pH, COD, temperature, TSS, MLSS and biogas
production. From the results, the highest percentage of COD removal was found to be at
dilution factor of 8 where 34,000 mg!L of COD influent with 98% of COD removal and
methane gas production of 941 Llday. The result shows that the ABR system has a high
potential of treating POME in short HRT because presence of baffles in the system.