Treatment of POME final discharge using Napier grass in wetland system

POME is the most expensive and difficult waste to manage since it was generated in large volume in tons at a time. POME usually will discharge to nearby land or river since it is the easiest and cheapest method to disposal. Since the POME final discharge quality still not meet the river water quality, the approach that will use is the wetland system. This wetland system is more compatible compare to another system to treat the POME final discharge since it is more cost efficient and fewer side effects compared to the biological and chemical approach. The system in this study contains a few ponds that is connected to serial form. Each stage serves a different purpose like the phytoremediation pond. Phytoremediation is a process that uses plants to degrade and remove contaminants from the environment. Phytoremediation can degrade, remove, transform, or immobilize toxic compounds located in soils, sediments, and more recently in polluted ground water and wastewater in treatment. The plant that been use in this system is the Napier Grass. At the end of the experiment, this system shows good quality water by reducing the level of COD by 71.57%, TSS by 83.59% and ammonia by 85.97%. From this research, it has been prove that the wetland system can reduce the contamination from the final discharge to meet the river water quality

Emerging development of nanocellulose as an antimicrobial material: An overview

The prolonged survival of microbes on surfaces in high-traffic/high-contact environments drives the need for a more consistent and passive form of surface sterilization to minimize the risk of infection. Due to increasing tolerance to antibiotics among microorganisms, research focusing on the discovery of naturally-occurring biocides with low-risk cytotoxicity properties has become more pressing. The latest research has centred on nanocellulosic antimicrobial materials due to their low-cost and unique features, which are potentially useful as wound dressings, drug carriers, packaging materials, filtration/adsorbents, textiles, and paint. This review discusses the latest literature on the fabrication of nanocellulose-based antimicrobial materials against viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa by employing variable functional groups, including aldehyde groups, quaternary ammonium, metal, metal oxide nanoparticles as well as chitosan. The problems associated with industrial manufacturing and the prospects for the advancement of nanocellulose-based antimicrobial materials are also addressed

Treatment of palm oil mill effluent final discharge using napier grass wetland system

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the one of most difficult waste to manage since it is being generated in a large volume most of the time. Treated POME (POME final discharge, POME FD) usually will be discharged to a nearby land or river since it is the easiest and cheapest method to disposal. However, it is common to find that POME final discharge quality does not meet the standard A discharge limit, resulted in unintended pollution towards the rivers. This study has two objectives. The first objective is to determine the effectiveness of constructed wetland system incorporated with the Napier grass to treat POME FD to standard A discharge limit. Second objective is to relate the bacterial community in the constructed wetland system after the treatment of POME FD to physicochemical properties in the effluent of the constructed wetland system. In order to reduce the pollutants level, a modified constructed wetland system with Pennisteum purpureum (Napier grass) as phytoremediation agent was introduced in this treatment process. This system is expected to reduce the contaminant in the POME FD to the standard A discharge limit. In this system, Napier grass was chosen due to its fast, rapid regrowth rates and strong responds to nutrient supply. The wetland system was designed to have a combination of 3 layers of soil, sand and rocks. The reason for this combination is to achieve different removal and performance since stone or gravel at the bottom layer served as the supporting layer, coarse sand used in the second layer was main substrate layer. Meanwhile, fine sand at the upper layer was used to facilitate the dispersion of wastewater and growth of plants. From this study, COD, TSS, colour, and ammonia nitrogen were removed by 51.61%, 91.44%, 72.72% and 63.09%, respectively. With this removal, the wastewater successfully achieved standard A limit set by DOE. Reduction of trace elements in POME FD resulting in the better growth of Napier grass in the treatment system. Trace elements such as silica, caesium, rubidium, strontium, magnesium, manganese and copper reduced by 80.51%, 71.17, 66.07%, 35.56%, 56.81%, 20.81% and 59.27%. Napier grass also managed to reduce the nutrient (macro-nutrient) in the POME FD, such as total nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and sodium by 54.6%, 91.8%, 75% and 58.46% respectively. From microbial analysis, Anaerolineaceae uncultured, Cyanobacteria norank, Acidobacteria norank and Nitrosomonadaceae uncultured were detected in the samples of POME FD and treated POME FD. Anaerolineaceae uncultured increased from 0.67% to 13.21%. Cyanobacteria norank also shows the increment in the CWs. It increased up to 93.9% in the CWs. At the beginning of this experiment, Acidobacteria norank shows only 0.06%, but after 102 day, the population of Acidobacteria norank increased to 2.44% that give total 97.54% increment. Lastly is Nitrosomonadaceae uncultured. This genus increased from 0.07% to 1.1% and this increment showed a strong prove that nitrification process has occur in the CWs that lead to the decrement of ammonia nitrogen and total nitrogen inside POME FD. As the conclusion, CWs can be used as a treatment method for POME FD since the system is capable to reduce the pollutants level in POME FD down to standard A discharge limit. On the other hand, this research also found that the shift of bacteria from Nitrosomonadaceae genus might be supporting the phytoremediation

Convective sludge drying by rotary drum dryer using waste steam for palm oil mill effluent treatment

Achieving a more sustainable wastewater treatment plant has never been so important. Issues around energy consumption and pollutants removal efficiency are of growing importance in the context of production costs and pollution control. In the palm oil industry, more than 85% mills are managing their palm oil mill effluent (POME) via lagoons, yet the system considered less effective as the quality of the effluent hardly achieved the permissible limits. It is therefore in the best interest of the industry to employ a better practice. Convective sludge drying (CSD) has been shown to have exceptional efficiency in high-strength wastewater treatment. In this study, CSD epitomized the zero-emission of POME treatment due to the fact that; 1) It operates on low-grade steam discharged by the mill instead of electricity, leading to a huge cut on energy consumption, 2) Production of secondary micronutrients-enriched solids by-product (i.e., calcium and magnesium) that can be repurposed as fertilizer, and 3) The decoction produced can potentially be reused to irrigate the existing oil palm plantation for nutrient cycling. The treatment resulted in substantial removal of the chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (SS), ammoniacal nitrogen (AN), and oil and grease (OG) down to 2 mg/L, 67.7 mg/L, 40.0 mg/L, 99% of BOD, COD, SS, OG, and AN removal efficiency. The operating cost was valued at USD 1.91 per m3 POME. The pilot-scale operation proved CSD is a viable alternative to the lagoons