Palm Oil Mill Effluent Treatment Using Electrocoagulation-Adsorption Hybrid Process

摘要

Palm oil processing is a multi-stage operation which generates large amount of palm oil mill effluent (POME). Due to its potential to cause environmental pollution, POME must be treated prior to discharge. Electrocoagulation (EC), adsorption (AD), combined EC and AD, and EC integrated with AD have demonstrated great potential to remove various organic and inorganic pollutants from wastewater. Up to date, no study has been found on POME treatment using EC-AD hybrid process. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the feasibility of applying EC-AD hybrid process as an alternative treatment for POME. The EC-AD hybrid process achieved higher removal of total suspended solid (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and colour as compared to EC and AD stand-alone processes. The EC-AD hybrid process reduced 79% of TSS, 44% of COD and 89% of colour from POME. The adsorption kinetics of TSS, COD and colour were best interpreted using pseudo-second-order model, which indicated that the adsorption rate was mainly controlled by chemisorption. Overall, the EC-AD hybrid process could be recommended as an alternative treatment for POME.