Development of enhanced biogas production from palm oil mill effluent (POME)

Abstract

This study aims to characterize palm oil mill effluent (POME) as a source of biogas production and to examine the biotic and abiotic factors for enhancing the POME biogas production. The results show that the POME sludge (LCPMKS) generated from PT Swastisiddhi Amarga Bioenergi mill is viscous, brown or greyish in color with total solid (TS) content of 38.5–57.4, chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 56.5–75.6, biological oxygen demand (BOD) of 35.5–40.7 and suspended solid (SS) of 28.1–46.9 in g/L. These values are above the standard threshold limits, thus POME is a potential source of environmental contamination if released untreated. Abiotic factors such as addition of Ca(OH)2 to neutralize the pH, provision of agitation system and increase in temperature enhanced the biogas production up to 50.5 L, 50.5 L and 98.5 L respectively. While, among the biotic factors, the condition which produced the highest biogas (250 L) contains the substrate volume of 50 L with 25% inoculum of type mud LCPMKS pool II using a laboratory scale anaerobic digester.