Adsorption isotherm studies of BOD, TSS and colour reduction from palm oil mill effluent (POME) using boiler fly ash

Abstract

Palm oil is one of the two most important vegetable oils in the world's oil and fats market. The extraction and purification processes generate different kinds of waste generally known as palm oil mill effluent (POME). Earlier studies had indicated the possibility of using boiler fly ash to adsorb impurities and colour in POME treatment. The adsorption treatment of POME using boiler fly ash was further investigated in detail in this work with regards to the reduction of BOD, colour and TSS from palm oil mill effluent. The amount of BOD, colour and TSS adsorbed increased as the weight of the boiler fly ash used was increased. Also, the smaller particle size of 425μm adsorbed more than the 850μm size. Attempts were made to fit the experimental data with the Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms. The R 2 values, which ranged from 0.8974-0.9898, 0.8848-0.9824 and 0.6235-0.9101 for Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms respectively, showed that Freundlich isotherm gave a better fit followed by Langmuir and then Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm. The sorption trend could be put as BOD > Colour > TSS. The apparent energy of adsorption was found to be 1.25, 0.58 and 0.97 (KJ/mol) for BOD, colour and TSS respectively, showing that sorption process occurs by physiosorption. Therefore, boiler fly ash is capable of reducing BOD, Colour and TSS from POME and hence could be used to develop a good adsorbent for POME treatment.

Elaboración de carbón activado a partir de endocarpio de coco para la remoción de anaranjado de metilo en fase acuosa

“…Los valores de B son proporcionales al grosor de la capa límite, la cual actúa como un arrastre viscoso al proceso de difusión antes de que ocurra la adsorción (Igwe et al 2010). En el cuadro II, B (y por lo tanto la capa límite) tiene un valor más alto en las concentraciones iniciales más elevadas y también aumenta con el paso de las etapas, excepto para 200 mg/L, que no se ajusta a la tendencia descrita anteriormente.…”

Post-Treatment of Palm Oil Mill Effluent Using Zeolite and Wastewater

“…According to Liew et al (2015), colour is a critical pollutant in POME. Several methods have been applied to remove colour such as, the SBR systems (Zahrim et al, 2009), anaerobic reactions (Zhang et al, 2008), banana peel (Mohammed and Chong, 2014), boiler fly ash (Igwe et al, 2010) and activated carbon (Zahrim et al, 2009). The low declorisation efficiency POST-TREATMENT OF PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT USING ZEOLITE AND WASTEWATER…”

A study of palm oil mill processing and environmental assessment of palm oil mill effluent treatment

“…The BOD is defined as the amount of oxygen used by microorganisms to which biologically decompose organic matter in wastewater within specified time and temperature. The more massive the organic content is, the higher is the oxygen demand to decompose organic matter, thus causing relatively higher BOD outcomes [29]. Two daily data were selected from start until middle of the six months' operation in order to study the BOD of the ponds, as well as to assess reliable data for operative management in light of wastewater quality.…”