Chemical characterizations of biochar from palm oil trunk for palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment

Abstract

Oil palm trunk (OPT) had been chosen due to its massive volume in local oleochemicals industry. Theoretically, the OPT biomass contains chemical characteristics as potential alternative adsorbent in wastewater treatment applications. In this study, the OPT biochar was produced by using a top-lit updraft (TLUD) gasifier. The designated process yielded 20% w/w. The effective temperature for the gasification process is between 500 °C and 950 °C. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area for the OPT biochar was 95.92 m2/g and the average pore diameter was 8.4 nm. The OPT biochar was categorized as mesoporous adsorbent. It was found out that the aromatic ring and aliphatic functional group was detected in the biochar based on the Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis which were commonly found in the biochar prochar produced at maximum temperature of 950 °C. The OPT biochar obtained from this study was an amorphous adsorbent based on the X-ray diffractogram (XRD) graph. Based on the result obtained from the adsorption test, the OPT biochar was capable to provide maximum removal of 49.5% of COD with an initial COD of 2850 mg/L. This study has found that the OPT biochar is a reasonable alternative to be utilized as an adsorbent for wastewater applications.