Sains Malaysiana 44(3)(2015): 421–427

Investigation of Three Pre-treatment Methods Prior to Nanofiltration Membrane for Palm Oil Mill Effluent Treatment

(Kajian Tiga Kaedah Pra-Rawat Sebelum Membran Penurasan Nano untuk Rawatan Efluen Kilang Minyak Sawit)

MUHAMMAD SAID¹, ABDUL WAHAB MOHAMMAD²*, MOHD TUSIRIN MOHD NOR²,

SITI ROZAIMAH SHEIKH ABDULLAH² & HASSIMI ABU HASAN²

¹Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Mathematics, University of Sriwijaya

Palembang 30662, Indonesia

²Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment

Univesiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Received: 8 January 2014/Accepted: 3 September 2014

ABSTRACT

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment has developed in the last decade. Due to the characteristic and volume of POME, it needed a complete treatment to reduce the pollutant content. Three pre-treatments method, ultrafiltration, adsorption and decantation were applied prior to nanofiltration (NF) membrane. The polyethersulphone membrane, montmorillonite as the adsorbent and modern decanter was investigated in this research. Two types of NF membrane, named NF-1 and NF-ASP30 were used after pre-treatment. The removal of four important parameters were determined i.e. COD, TSS, colour and turbidity. The results showed that the adsorption and UF is better than decantation pre-treatment. The ultrafiltration and adsorption can reduce POME content more than 80% for all parameter while decantation varied between 40 and 80%. The combination of ultrafiltration and adsorption with both of NF membrane can removed almost all the parameter. But the decantation can only remove the turbidity but not for the rest of the parameters. Besides the POME content, the flux decline for both of NF membrane was also investigated. The flux of NF-1 membrane was higher than NF-ASP30 membrane but NF-ASP was more relative stable for the flux decline. Overall, NF-1 has better performance in flux decline.

Keywords: Adsorption; decantation; nanofiltration; POME; ultrafiltration

ABSTRAK

Rawatan efluen kilang minyak sawit (POME) telah dibangunkan sejak sedekad yang lalu. Disebabkan ciri dan isi padu POME, ia memerlukan satu rawatan yang sempurna untuk mengurangkan kandungan pencemaran. Tiga kaedah pra-rawat iaitu penurasan ultra, penjerapan dan penyiringan telah digunakan sebelum menggunakan membran penurasan nano. Dalam penyelidikan ini, membran polietersulfon, bahan penjerap iaitu montmorilonit dan penyiring moden telah dikaji. Dua jenis membran penurasan nano iaitu NF-1 dan NF-ASP30 telah digunakan selepas kaedah pra-rawat. Penyingkiran empat jenis parameter yang penting, iaitu keperluan oksigen kimia (COD), jumlah pepejal terampai (TSS), warna dan kekeruhan telah ditentukan. Keputusan menunjukkan bahawa penjerapan dan penurasan ultra lebih baik daripada pra-rawat penyiringsan penurasan ultra dan penjerapam boleh mengurangkan kandungan POME lebih daripada 80% untuk semua parameter manakala penyiringan berubah antara 40 dan 80%. Gabungan penurasan ultra dan penjerapan dengan kedua-dua membran penurasan nano boleh menyingkirkan hampir kesemua parameter, manakala penyiringan hanya boleh menyingkirkan kekeruhan tetapi bukan untuk parameter yang selebihnya. Selain kandungan POME, penurunan fluks untuk kedua-dua membran NF juga dikaji. Fluks membran NF-1 adalah lebih tinggi daripada membran NF-ASP30 tetapi penurunan fluks NF-ASP30 adalah lebih stabil. Secara keseluruhannya, NF-1 mempunyai prestasi yang lebih baik dalam penurunan fluks.

Kata kunci: Penjerapan; penurasan nano; penurasan ultra; penyiringan; POME

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*Corresponding author; email: wahabm@eng.ukm.my