Advanced Treatment of Palm Oil Mill Effluent Using Thermally Activated Persulfate Oxidation

Advanced treatment of biologically processed palm oil mill effluent (BIOTPOME), which possesses a potential danger to the water sources is required to meet the Malaysian discharge standard, as BIOTPOME contains high level of chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids and oil and grease even after going through conventional treatment process. The significant but insufficient treatment efficiency of ponding system in Malaysia urged an alternative method to treat the recalcitrant organic compounds. Thus, post-treatment of BIOTPOME using oxidation by thermally activated persulfate process was proposed to solve this issue. In order to maximize the removal of COD and color, the central composite design (CCD) module of the response surface approach was used to optimize the interactions of the process variables temperature, S2O82-/COD ratio, and reaction time. In order to identify the significant terms of interacting process factors, CCD performed a batch study from which statistical models of responses were created. All models were confirmed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) showing significances with Prob > F less than 0.1. The optimal performance was obtained at the temperature of 67.4 degrees C, S2O82-/COD ratio of 9.8 and reaction time of 120 min, rendering COD removal of 85.65% and color removal of 85.74%. The total cost for the treatment process was RM0.94 per liter.

Automated summary

Advanced treatment is required to meet the Malaysian discharge standard for biologically processed palm oil mill effluent (BIOTPOME) due to its high levels of COD, suspended solids, and oil and grease. The use of oxidation by thermally activated persulfate process proved effective in removing COD and color. Optimization of the process variables using central composite design resulted in an optimal performance with high COD and color removal efficiency.