Jetsada Chotwattanasak. Treatment of Palm Oil Mill Effluent by High Rate Anaerobic Digester. Master's Degree(Environmental Technology). King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. Library. : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, 2004.
Treatment of Palm Oil Mill Effluent by High Rate Anaerobic Digester
Abstract:
The palm oil industry in the south of Thailand has rapidly expanded during the past decade. Palm oil mills (POM)
release large amounts of organic pollutants along with their wastewater requiring proper wastewater treatment
methods including a combination of anaerobic / aerobic systems. This study was conducted to evaluate and to
improve the performance of the existing full-scale anaerobic digester treating palm oil mill wastewater at Asian
Palm Oil Co.,Ltd. Krabi, Thailand. Trials have been conducted at hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 14, 10, 7, and
6.5 days and average organic loading rates (OLR) of 2.43, 5.09, 6.50, and 8.70 k g ~ 0 ~ / m 3 . d , respectively.
Average BOD5 and COD removal efficiency was 93% and 65%, respectively. Wide variations of influent flow
and organic loading have been carefully monitored to arrive at optimum operation criteria. To ensure optimum
and stable biological process efficiency, the pH in the digester should not be lower than 7.0, at influent temperatures
in the range of 35 - 45 OC. At a HRT of 7 days and a corresponding OLR of 6.50 kg COD/^^-^, a specific methane
(CH4) gas generation per kg COD removal of 0.35 m 3 c ~ 4 / k g c 0 ~ has been achieved, equal to a total biogas
generation of 4,295 m3/day, with an average CH4 gas content of 67%.
Utilization of renewable energy, including biogas and corresponding industrial environment management, are
important issues of sustainable economic development. This study contributes to these issues and has evaluated the
utilization of biogas for electricity generation in modified diesel engine (DG) sets. The generated electricity has been
sold to the Provincial Electricity Authority under its Very Small Power Producer (VSPP) program. At present, the
factory has 2 biogas driven DG sets with a total capacity of around 120 kW. The actual amount of biogas produced
by the anaerobic digester is sufficient to run 4 biogas DG sets for which the investment will be paid back within 4
years.
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. Library