Abstract
Anaerobic treatment processes have achieved popularity in treating palm oil mill effluent due to its high treatability and biogas generation. The use of externally submerged membranes with anaerobic reactors promotes the retention of the biomass in the reactor. This study was conducted in thermophilic conditions with the Polytetrafluoroethylene hollow fiber (PTFE-HF) membrane which was operated at 55 °C. The reactor was operated at Organic Loading Rates (OLR) of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 kg Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)/m3·d to investigate the treatment performance and the membrane operation. The efficiency of the COD removal achieved by the system was between 93–98%. The highest methane yield achieved was 0.56 m3 CH4/kg CODr. The reactor mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS) was maintained between 11.1 g/L to 20.9 g/L. A dead-end mode PTFE hollow fiber microfiltration was operated with the constant flux of 3 LMH (L/m2·h) in permeate recirculation mode to separate the clear final effluent and retain the biomass in the reactor. Membrane fouling was one of the limiting factors in the membrane bioreactor application. In this study, organic fouling was observed to be 93% of the total membrane fouling.
Highlights
Palm oil is a valuable oil used for food and as an ingredient for many consumable products such as cooking oil, margarine, milk fat replacer, and cocoa butter substitute
palm oil mill effluent (POME) was analyzed for the parameters of chemical oxygen demand (COD), BOD5, suspended solids, mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS) oil and grease, total volatile solids, pH, temperature, Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN) and ammonia, following the standard methods [7]
Membrane operations were evaluated with increments in the Effluent from the anaerobic reactor was pumped into the Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hollow trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and resistance due to fouling
Summary
Palm oil is a valuable oil used for food and as an ingredient for many consumable products such as cooking oil, margarine, milk fat replacer, and cocoa butter substitute. Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is normally associated with palm oil processes that typically involve the generation of large volumes of wastewater at high temperatures (80–90 ◦ C), low pH, high BOD, COD, solids, and oil and grease as effluents [2]. Anaerobic treatment methods have been reported to achieve over 95% BOD removal efficiency [3]. Previous studies reported 93.5% COD removal from POME using combined high rate anaerobic reactors. Many studies posited that thermophilic anaerobic processes result in 25–50% higher methane yield than mesophilic conditions [5,6]. TAnMBR by using PTFE membranes for palm oil wastewater treatment. The performance of the reactor was evaluated in terms of organic removal efficiency, biogas production rate, and methane yield. The membrane separation performance in terms of mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS) concentration and total suspended solids (TSS) removal efficiency was evaluated. The dominant membrane fouling was investigated in this study
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