Palm oil milling is invariably accompanied by the generation of effluent. Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a potential environmental pollutant. On average, 1.5 m3 water is needed to process 1 t of fresh fruit bunches and half of this ends up as POME. Currently, some 85% of POME treatment of more than 400 mills in the country is based on open ponding system, which involves biological treatments of facultative, anaerobic and aerobic degradations. The treated effluent is discharged into a watercourse. Effluent discharged to the environment is closely monitored by the Department of Environment (DOE), in particular the biological oxygen demand (BOD). While anaerobic digestion and tertiary treatment technologies are able to meet the regulatory discharge requirement of BOD 100 ppm – the current upper limit set by the DOE – existing technologies are generally unable to consistently meet the more stringent discharge standard of BOD 20 ppm.

Main Research: Dr Loh Soh Kheang