1

Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman
Review
Pollution control technologies for the treatment of palm oil mill efuent (POME)
through end-of-pipe processes
Ta Yeong Wu a, Abdul Wahab Mohammad b, *, Jamaliah Md. Jahim b, Nurina Anuar b
a
Chemical and Sustainable Process Engineering Research Group, School of Engineering, Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, Bandar Sunway, 46150,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
b
Scale-up and Downstream Processing Research Group, Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 3 July 2008
Received in revised form
21 January 2010
Accepted 9 February 2010
Available online 15 March 2010
Palm oil production is one of the major industries in Malaysia and this country ranks one of the largest
productions in the world. In Malaysia, the total production of crude palm oil in 2008 was 17,734,441
tonnes. However, the production of this amount of crude palm oil results in even larger amounts of palm
oil mill efuent (POME). In the year 2008 alone, at least 44 million tonnes of POME was generated in
Malaysia. Currently, the ponding system is the most common treatment method for POME but other
processes such as aerobic and anaerobic digestion, physicochemical treatment and membrane ltration
may also provide the palm oil industries with possible insights into the improvement of POME treatment
processes. Generally, open ponding offers low capital and operating costs but this conventional method is
becoming less attractive because the methane produced is wasted to the atmosphere and the system can
not be certied for Carbon Emission Reduction trading. On the other hand, anaerobic digestion of POME
provides the fastest payback of investment because the treatment enables biogas recovery for heat
generation and treated efuent for land application. Lastly, it is proposed herewith that wastewater
management based on the promotion of cleaner production and environmentally sound biotechnologies
should be prioritized and included as a part of the POME management in Malaysia for attaining
sustainable development. This paper thus discusses and compares state-of-the-art POME treatment
methods as well as their individual performances.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
End-of-pipe process
Palm oil mill efuent (POME)
Ponding system
Aerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion
Physicochemical treatment
Membrane ltration process
1. Introduction
The Malaysian palm oil industry is growing rapidly and quickly
becoming a signicant agriculture-based industry in this country.
Table 1 shows that the total productions of crude palm oil in 2008
and 2009 are 17,734,441 and 16,044,874 tonnes, respectively
(MPOB, 2008a, 2009). The high production of crude palm oil
prompts the palm oil industry to become an important contributor
to Malaysia's GDP. Export earnings from palm oil, palm kernel oil
and relating products in 1998 amounted to almost US$5.6 billion,
equivalent to 5.6% of the GDP (Yusoff, 2006). The palm oil industry
provides a source of livelihood to rural families in government land
schemes and private small holders, as well as employment opportunities to agricultural workers in estates (Khalid and Wan Mustafa,
1992; Ma et al., 1993). In Malaysia, palm oil is even utilized in the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 603 89214529; fax: 603 8921 4660.

E-mail addresses: wu.ta.yeong@eng.monash.edu.my, tayeong@hotmail.com (T.Y.
Wu), wahabm@eng.ukm.my, wahabm@yahoo.com (A.W. Mohammad).
0301-4797/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.02.008
production of biodiesel (palm oil methylester or palm oil diesel) for

buses and cars, and a major expansion of Malaysian diesel
production with 5% palm oil fuel is expected from 2006 (Kalam and
Masjuki, 2002; Reijnders and Huijbregts, 2008).
The progress of the milling and processing sectors has also been
in tandem with the development of oil palm planting. Malaysia has
adopted a wet process for palm oil milling since the dry process,
which is used in certain places in the south of Thailand, is unsuitable for use in large-scale productions (Prasertsan and Prasertsan,
1996). The number of palm oil mills in Malaysia has increased
tremendously, i.e. from about 10 mills in 1960 (Ma et al., 1993) to
410 operated mills in 2008 (MPOB, 2008b), in order to meet the
crude palm oil demands both locally and internationally. However,
the production of such large amounts of crude palm oil results in
even larger amounts of palm oil mill efuent (POME) in which case
in the year 2008 alone, at least 44 million tonnes of POME was
generated in Malaysia and the gures are expected to rise every
year. With this alarming gure, the palm oil mill industry in
Malaysia is identied as the one generating the largest pollution
load in rivers throughout the country (Hwang et al., 1978).
1468
T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490
of reusing POME as an environmentally sustainable bioresource has

not been mentioned in detail in these review papers. Such state-ofthe-art methods may nonetheless open up a new arena in the
management of POME and may also provide the palm oil industry
with a possible insight into better improvement in current POME
treatment processes. The present paper thus represents a holistic
review that revisits and updates current treatment methods for
POME, and adds more recent, state-of-the-art techniques in order
to obtain a linking, understanding and appreciation of existing endof-pipe methods for treating POME.
Table 1
Malaysian production of crude palm oil in 2008 and 2009 (MPOB, 2008a, 2009).
Month
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Total
2008 (tonnes)
1,424,244
1,227,969
1,294,710
1,327,591
1,457,878
1,468,921
1,560,215
1,600,214
1,579,442
1,652,071
1,658,417
1,482,769
17,734,441
2009 (tonnes)
1330,195
1187,381
1275,822
1281,852
1395,275
1447,926
1492,958
1496,073
1557,764
1984,036
1595,592
data not available
2. Process description and sources of water pollution

The wet palm oil milling process is the most standard and
typical way of extracting palm oil, especially in Malaysia. In large
factories, steam and water are used, thus giving rise to the wastewater known as POME. The palm oil milling process is more or less
the same for all the mills throughout the country. Fig. 1 shows the
stages involved in the typical processing of crude palm oil. Some
primary palm oil mill processes are explained and summarized in
the following section (Borja and Banks, 1994c; Khalid and Wan
Mustafa, 1992; Ma and Ong, 1985, 1988; Ma et al., 1993; Mahlia
et al., 2001; Prasertsan and Prasertsan, 1996).
16,044,874
Ponding system has been employed by most of the palm oil

mills as their conventional treatment of POME, in which case more
than 85% of the palm oil mills in Malaysia have adopted this
method for POME treatment (Ma et al., 1993). Nevertheless,
ponding system requires long retention times and large treatment
areas because this system usually consists of a de-oiling tank,
acidication, anaerobic and facultative ponds with respective
hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 1, 4, 45 and 16 days (Ma and Ong,
1985). Also, the treated POME using ponding system sometimes
couldn't meet the discharge standard of 50 mg/l BOD (Chin et al.,
1996) and the removal of nitrogen from POME is usually unsatisfactory because nitrication is an uncommon phenomenon in the
ponding system (John, 1985).
With the rapid expansion of the palm oil industry and the
public's increased awareness of environmental pollution, the
industry is obliged both socially and aesthetically to treat its
efuent before discharging it. In 1977, the Malaysian Government
proposed and legalized standards for POME discharge into watercourses (Wood, 1977). Since then, palm oil mills are required to
treat their POME prior to discharging it into streams and rivers. The
parameter limits for POME discharge into watercourses in Malaysia
are summarized in Table 2.
Sporadic research has been performed in order to nd
approachable solutions for managing POME. The management of
POME has been reviewed before (Agamuthu, 1995; Davis, 1978;
Edewor, 1986; Khalid and Wan Mustafa, 1992; Ma and Ong, 1985,
1986; Ma et al., 1993; Prasertsan and Prasertsan, 1996), with the
main emphasis placed on the current treatment methods, which
are adopted by the palm oil industries. However, numerous treatment techniques performed in laboratory scales and the possibility
2.1. Sterilization
The rst step consists in sterilizing the fresh fruit bunches in
steam sterilizers for 50 min at about 140 C and a pressure of
3 105 Pa in order to stop the rapid formation of free fatty acids
during the pulping process. This process also permits the fruits that
are still attached in bunches to be loosened. Under a proper mill
operation and management, the amount of efuent (sterilizer
condensate) is about 0.9 tonnes for each produced tonnes of crude
palm oil. The properties of this efuent are shown in Table 3.
2.2. Stripping, digestion and pressing
The objective of stripping is to separate the sterilized fruits from
the bunch stalks by using a rotary drum thresher. The empty fruit
bunches are then conveyed to the plantation ground as raw fertilizers or are incinerated to generate an extra source of energy. After
the bunches have been stripped, the sterilized fruit and the
accompanying calyx leaves must be digested in a heated vessel at
about 80e90 C in order for the mesocarp to be loosened from the
nuts for the subsequent pressing. Then, the homogenous oil mash
from the digesters is pushed through a screw press, and the oil is
thus separated from the spent mesocarp and the nuts.
Table 2
Parameter limits for POME discharge into watercourses in Malaysia (Laws of Malaysia, 1994).
Parametersa
BOD3b
COD
Total solids
Suspended solids
Oil and grease
Ammoniacal nitrogen
Total nitrogen
pH
Temperature
a
b
c
Limits according to periods of discharge

1-7-1978e
30-6-1979
1-7-1979e
30-6-1980
1-7-1980e
30-6-1981
1-7-1981e
30-6-1982
1-7-1982e
31-12-1983
1-1-1984 and
thereafter
5000
10,000
4000
1200
150
25
200
5.0e9.0
45
2000
4000
2500
800
100
15
100
5.0e9.0
45
1000
2000
2000
600
75
15
75
5.0e9.0
45
500
1000
1500
400
50
10
50
5.0e9.0
45
250
e
e
400
50
150c
300c
5.0e9.0
45
100
e
e
400
50
150c
200c
5.0e9.0
45
All parameters are in units of mg/l with the exception of pH and temperature ( C).
The sample for BOD analysis is incubated at 30 C for 3 days.
Value of ltered sample.
Fresh fruit bunches
1469
Legend:
Sterilizer
condensate
Sterilization
Stripping
Operation
Product
Incinerator
Empty fruit
bunches
Product
of POME
Fruits
Fiber for
boiler fuel
Digestion
Oil mash
Nut/fiber
separator
Pressing
Press cake
Nuts
Nutcracker
Shells and
kernels
Crude oil with
much solids
Hydrocyclone
wastewater
Hydrocylone
Solids
Decanter
Kernels
Crude oil with
less solids
Shells for
boiler fuel
Clarification tank
Oil
Sludge
Centrifuge purification
Separator
Vacuum drying
Oil
Separator
sludge
Dry Oil
Storage tank
Fig. 1. Process operations and products in a typical palm oil extraction process.
2.3. Clarication
The crude oil extracted from the digested palm fruit by pressing
contains varying amounts of water as well as impurities consisting
of vegetable matter. This matter is in the form of either insoluble
solids or dissolved matter in water. By settling and centrifuging, the
water present in the crude oil can be largely removed from the
bottom phase since most of it is free or non-dissolved. The

bottom phase of the clarication or settling tank is sent to a sludge
separator or centrifuge where approximately 1.5 tonnes of sludge
waste is obtained per tonnes of produced crude palm oil. The
properties of the sludge are shown in Table 3. The total solids
content of the clarication sludge is much higher than in the other
waste streams (Table 3), which is the result of a higher proportion
1470
Table 3
Characteristics of sterilizer condensate, separator sludge and hydrocyclone wastewater (Whiting, 1978).
Parametersa
Sterilizer
condensate
Separator
sludge
Hydrocyclone
wastewater
pH
BOD3b
COD
TSS
Total dissolved
solid
Total nitrogen
Ammoniacal
nitrogen
Oil and grease
5.0
23,000
47,000
5000
34,000
4.5
29,000
64,000
23,000
22,000
a
b
600
20
1200
40
4000
7000
5000
15,000
7000
100
100
e
300
All parameters are in units of mg/l except pH.

The sample for BOD analysis is incubated at 30 C for 3 days.
of carbohydrate constituents, both soluble and insoluble (Ho et al.,

1984).
2.4. Nut and ber separation
During pressing of the digested fruit to extract the oil, a cake
made up of nuts and ber is produced. The cake is given a preliminary breaking treatment before being fed to the nut/ber separator
that may bring about separation by mechanical means or by use of
an air stream.
2.5. Kernel extraction and drying
After separation of the ber from the nuts, the latter are sent for
further processing from which another product, the palm kernel, is
obtained. This processing section in constituted of a hydrocyclone
that separates the kernels from the empty shells after cracking the
nuts. Approximately 0.1 tonnes of liquid efuent per tonnes of
produced crude palm oil is generated in this process. Table 3 shows
the properties of the hydrocyclone wastewater. Any uncracked nuts
must be removed and recycled, and the shell separated from the
kernels.
3. Characteristics of POME
3.1. General remarks regarding POME
POME is a colloidal suspension, originating from the mixture of
sterilizer condensate, separator sludge and hydrocyclone wastewater in a ratio of 9:15:1, respectively. In total, about 2.5e3.0
tonnes of POME per tonnes of produced crude palm oil is obtained
in the extraction process (Borja and Banks, 1994c; Ma and Ong,
1985). Table 4 presents the results from a series of interviews
between Shirai et al. (2003) and a few mill managers in Malaysia
with regards to the generation of POME, biogas and methane (CH4)
during a time period of a month.
Normally, the characteristics of POME may vary considerably for
different batches, days and factories, depending on the processing
techniques and the age or type of fruit (Ng et al., 1987) as well as the
discharge limit of the factory, climate and condition of the palm oil
processing (Ahmad et al., 2005f, 2006b). Seasonal oil palm cropping, activities of the palm oil mill (such as occasional public
holidays, closure of the mill, operation and quality control of individual mills) will also inuence the quality and quantity of the
discharged POME which in turn affect the biological treatment
process of POME (Yacob et al., 2005, 2006a). Thus, the variation of
the characteristics of POME, in terms of its quality and quantity, is
the main reason that causes selection in the treatment of POME in
Table 4
The generation of POME, biogas and CH4 in selected FELDA mills in Malaysia (Shirai
et al., 2003).
Palm oil
mill
POME
(m3/
month)
Biogas
(m3/
month)
CH4, measured
value
(m3/month)
CH4, reported
value
(m3/month)
Felda Serting
Hilir Mill
Serting Mill
Tementi Mill
Keratong 9 Mill
Keratong 2 Mill
Keratong 3 Mill
Bukit Kepayang
Mill
Triang Mill
16,110
451,080
157,878
293,202
9550
5154
14,000
4629
5350
7062
267,400
144,312
392,000
129,612
149,800
197,736
93,590
50,509
137,200
45,364
52,430
69,208
173,810
93,803
254,800
84,248
97,370
128,528
10,258
287,224
100,528
186,696
the palm oil industries. Fig. 2 shows the commencement of a low

crop season as of November 2002, coupled with the year-end public
holidays, was marked by a lower volumetric POME discharge and
thus a decline in the CH4 emission from open digesting tanks in
Serting Hilir Palm Oil Mill, Negeri Sembilan (Yacob et al., 2005).
3.2. POME as a source of wastewater
POME, when fresh, is a thick brownish colloidal mixture of
water, oil and ne suspended solids. It is hot (80e90 C) and
possesses a very high BOD3, which is 100 times as polluting as
domestic sewage. The efuent is non-toxic, as no chemicals are
added to the extraction process (Khalid and Wan Mustafa, 1992; Ma
et al., 1993), and also acidic with a pH around 4.5 as it contains
organic acids in complex forms that are suitable to be used as
carbon sources (Md Din et al., 2006). Table 5 shows the general
characteristics of raw POME (Wood et al., 1979; Wong et al., 2009a).
The suspended solids or particulate fraction of the efuent
contribute with less than 50% to the total pollutant level (Ho and
Tan, 1983). The particulates, which consist of plant cell debris and
fragments, are entirely organic in nature as indicated by the very
low ash contents (Ho et al., 1984). A simple calculation carried out
by Wood (1977) on the mineral contents of POME displays a range
from 2510 to 3850 ppm. The value of 0.421 g/100 ml POME for the
total ash obtained by Ho et al. (1984) agreed well with those results.
The lignin-to-cellulose ratio for the particulate fraction of POME is
relatively high in comparison with other agricultural brous residues (Jackson, 1977). It is known that ligneous structures within an
organic complex have a tendency to shield the cellulose from
enzymatic hydrolysis (Han et al., 1975) and thus attribute a possible
barrier to the successful biological treatment of POME.
Fig. 2. The monthly production of fresh fruit bunches (FBB) and POME in Serting Hilir
Palm Oil Mill (Yacob et al., 2005).

Table 5
Characteristics of POME (Wood et al., 1979; Wong et al., 2009a).
Parametera
Concentration
range (mg/l)
Element
Concentration
range (mg/l)
pH
COD
Soluble COD
BOD
Total solid
Total volatile solid
TSS
Total dissolved
solid
Oil and grease
Total nitrogen
4.15e4.45
45,500e65,000
20,500e24,500
21,500e28,500
33,790e37,230
27,300e30,150
15,660e23,560
15,500e29,000
Phosphorus
Potassium
Magnesium
Calcium
Manganese
Iron
Zinc
Copper
94e131
1281e1928
254e344
276e405
2.1e4.4
75e164
1.2e1.8
0.8e1.6
1077e7582
500e800
Chromium
Cobalt
Cadmium
0.05e0.43
0.04e0.06
0.01e0.02
All parameters are in units of mg/l except pH.
Crystal-like particles that are long and pointed at both ends can
often be found in POME. The occurrence of such crystalline deposits
in various forms is not uncommon in plant cells (Fahn, 1974). The
acicular crystals are known as raphides and are comprised of
calcium oxalate (Ho and Tan, 1983). Crystals of calcium salts,
especially calcium oxalate, have been reported to be the most
common crystals found in many kinds of plant cells (Fahn, 1974).
It is well established that plant cell walls are made up of
microbrils (Frey-Wyssling, 1976), and during the processing
conditions of the fresh palm fruits, it is highly probable that
a partial maceration of the walls of these oil-bearing cells into
macrobrils may occur. The chemical nature and the physical
dimensions of the rod-like particles suggest that these macrobrils
actually stem from the cell walls (Ho and Tan, 1983). The
1471
particulates fractionated from POME along with other corresponding details are shown in Fig. 3.
The oil droplets in POME are well below 8 mm in size and thus
very stable, i.e. they will not cream/coalesce under normal
circumstances (Ho and Tan, 1983; Ho et al., 1984). Only traces of oil
are found in the soluble fraction of POME whereas the bulk of the
oil is usually trapped in plant cell debris and unruptured plant cells
which, when extracted with hexane, yield approximately 0.673 g
oil/100 ml POME (Ho et al., 1984). It is therefore not surprising that
up to 50% of oil and grease could be removed when the suspended
solids in the POME were totally eliminated by means of centrifugation (Ho and Tan, 1983).
In total, the high BOD loading and low pH of POME, together with
the colloidal nature of the suspended solids, render treatments by
conventional methods difcult (Olie and Tjeng, 1972; Stanton, 1974).
Consequently, few palm oil mills have adopted policies for efuent
treatment other than ponding, which can lead to substantial losses
in agricultural land as a result of seepage (Webb et al., 1975).
4. Treatment of POME
4.1. Aerobic digestion or treatment
In general, the system using an aerobic digestion for POME
treatment would be more efcient and the HRT even shorter than
for anaerobic digestion (Agamuthu, 1995). For instance, Karim and
Kamil (1989) found that by using the fungal (Trichoderma viride)
inoculum, a reduction in COD of the POME of more than 95% could
be achieved after 10e14 days of fermentation. This nding was in
agreement with results from Church et al. (1973) who reported on
the successful use of the fungus T. viride in aerated lagoons and
Fig. 3. The centrifugal fractionation of POME (Wu et al., 2009a).
1472
Table 6
The performance of an aerobic digestion or treatment.
Treatment processesa
Operational conditions
Parameters
Retention Temperature Organic

loading
time
( C)
rate
(day)
(g COD/l
day)
References
COD
TSS
Oil and grease
Inuent Overall
(mg/l)
reduction
(%)
Inuent Overall
(mg/l)
reduction
(%)
Inuent Overall
(mg/l)
reduction
(%)
0.417
30e35
0.4e0.65d
9210
97.7
3510
99.2
325
93.3
14
28
>95
10
28
>95
30
92
30
z91
z60
Aerobic treatment with Yarrowia lipolytica
30
243,000
96.9
Aerobic treatment with Y. lipolytica 0.03 g/L

FeCl3 consortium developed from
garden soil
Rotating biological contactor with
Saccharomyces cerevisiaec
Activated sludge reactorb
30
246,000
99.4
2.29
88e
89f
2.5
3908
98
237
90
2.5
3925
89
558
80
Pressurized activated
sludge processb
Aerobic treatment with 5% inoculum of
Trichoderma viride spores
Aerobic treatment with 5% inoculum of
T. viride mycelium
Aerobic treatment with single culture of
KUL8 (Acinetobacter sp.)
Aerobic treatment with mixed culture
Activated sludge reactor

a
b
c
d
e
f
87.7
Ho and Tan
(1988)
Karim and
Kamil (1989)
Karim and
Kamil (1989)
Bhumibhamon
et al. (2002)
Bhumibhamon
et al. (2002)
Oswal et al.
(2002)
Oswal et al.
(2002)
Najafpour et al.
(2005)
Vijayaraghavan
et al. (2007)
Vijayaraghavan
et al. (2007)
Unless otherwise stated, all the treatment processes are used to treat raw POME.
Anaerobically digested POME is treated.
Diluted raw POME is treated.
The organic loading rate is in the unit of kg BOD/kg MLSS day.
The COD removal is the result of COD surface loading rate of 38 g COD/m2 day.
The TSS removal is the result of solid loading rate of 14 g TSS/m2 day.
oxidation ditches for the treatment of corn and pea canning wastes.
Thus, a COD removal in the wastes of more than 95% could be
achieved in much shorter HRTs than in usual anaerobic digestion. T.
viride was able to grow well and compete against the indigenous
ora in the raw POME with a yield of 1.37e1.42 g/l (dry weight)
mycelium and a 37.6e40.7% crude protein (Karim and Kamil, 1989).
Oswal et al. (2002) found that POME treatment using Yarrowia
lipolytica NCIM 3589, which is known to degrade alkanes in crude
oil (Zinjarde and Pant, 2000), provided a COD reduction of about
95% with a retention time as short as 2 days. An even higher
reduction of COD could further be achieved when a POME treated
with Yarrowia was sequentially treated with a occulant and ultimately with a consortium developed from garden soil. In the
treatment of oil and grease in POME, Bhumibhamon et al. (2002)
found that it was more suitable to utilize single cultures of Acinetobacter sp. (KUL8), Bacillus sp. (KUL39) and Pseudomonas sp.
(KLB1) rather than a mixed culture. The lipases produced by mixed
cultures could catalyze either the hydrolysis reaction or the transesterication reaction, depending on the source of lipase and the
reaction conditions (Bhumibhamon et al., 2002; Macrae, 1983).
Moreover, the mixed culture also produced protease, which might
lower the lipase and degradation activities (Bhumibhamon et al.,
2002).
Najafpour et al. (2005) used the continuous bench scale of
a rotating biological contactor (RBC) to treat POME. An RBC retains
a very high biomass and therefore has the capacity to treat
wastewater of high strength. It also tolerates high organic loadings
and hydraulic shocks in which case the disc biomass is able to play
a major role in the organic biodegradation (Boshou and Hartmann,
1992; Najafpour et al., 2002). According to Najafpour et al. (2005),
with an initial biomass loading and by xing a biolm of Saccharomyces cerevisiae on the surface of the RBC, it was possible to
signicantly remove about 88% COD, 89% suspended solids and 80%
total Kjeldahl nitrogen with the lowest volumetric ow rate of 1.1 l/
h of POME at an HRT of 55 h.
Vijayaraghavan et al. (2007) investigated the treatment of POME
using aerobic oxidation based on an activated sludge process. They
found that the removal of COD as well as oil and grease by aerobic
oxidation was higher in anaerobically digested POME as compared
to in diluted raw POME at an HRT of 60 h. A possible reason for the
increased removal of organic matter as well as oil and grease in the
anaerobically digested sample was believed to be the presence of
partially degraded organic and oil molecules, making them more
amenable to aerobic digestion. Recently, Damayanti et al. (2010)
used respirometric test to estimate model parameters for activated sludge modeling of POME in a continuous stirred tank
reactor. They found that the mass transfer coefcient is 0.3 h1
during lag and start feed phase and 0.01 h1 during stop feed phase,
while the heterotrophic yield coefcient is 0.44. These coefcients
could serve as a basis for design and optimization of a POME
treatment process.
Ho and Tan (1988) used a pressurized activated sludge process
in the secondary treatment of anaerobically digested POME liquor
for obtaining a high rate of oxygen transfer at an elevated pressure
in the reactor. By keeping the ratio of nutrients to mixed liquor
suspended solids (MLSS) between 0.4 and 0.7 kg BOD/kg MLSS per
day in the pressurized reactor, it was possible to achieve reductions
in BOD, COD, total solids, suspended solids (or biomass) and oil
(and grease) of up to 98.4%, 97.7%, 87.5%, 99.2% and 93.3%,
respectively. The superiority of the pressurized system over the
conventional method depends solely on its higher level of dissolved
oxygen and larger constants of the oxygen transfer rate.
It is not unusual to encounter an increase in the total concentration of organic nitrogen as well as a decrease in the
concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen with time

in all aerobic pretreatments of POME. A possible explanation is the
presence of aerobic non-symbiotic N-xers such as Azotobacter,
Beijerinckia and Bacillus species and also the utilization of ammonia
nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen for growth of the microora in POME
(Agamuthu et al., 1986). A decrease in the ammonia nitrogen
concentration was also observed in municipal waste by Chopp et al.
(1982) as well as in sewage sludge treated alone or with soil by
Premi and Corneld (1969). The performance of an aerobic digestion or treatment is summarized in Table 6.
4.2. Anaerobic digestion or treatment
Anaerobic digestion is the most suitable method for the treatment of efuents containing high concentration of organic carbon
(Perez et al., 2001) such as POME. Furthermore, anaerobic digestion
has been proven to be unique and the most benecial stabilization
technique as it optimizes cost effectiveness, is environmentally
sound, minimizes the amount of nal sludge disposal and has the
ability to produce a net energy gain in the form of CH4 (De Baere,
2000). The suggested anaerobic treatment processes for POME
include anaerobic suspended growth processes, attached growth
anaerobic processes (immobilized cell bioreactors, anaerobic
uidized bed reactors and anaerobic lters), anaerobic sludge
blanket processes (up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors and
anaerobic bafed reactors), membrane separation anaerobic
treatment processes and hybrid anaerobic treatment processes.
Table 7 shows the performance of anaerobic digestion or treatment
under both mesophilic and thermophilic conditions.
4.2.1. Anaerobic suspended growth processes
Early applications of anaerobic treatments of industrial wastewaters consisted in suspended growth processes, which were
initially similarly designed to anaerobic sludge digesters (Metcalf
and Eddy, Inc., 2003). In Malaysia, anaerobic digesters employed
in the treatment of POME can be operated either as open tank
digesters with an extended aeration system (Fig. 4) or as closed
tank digesters with biogas recovery and land application (Fig. 5).
In an open tank digester system, POME is treated in a two-phase
anaerobic digestion process followed by extended aeration in
a pond. The digester (600e1300 m3) remains open at the top and is
unstirred. The HRTs for the acidication, anaerobic and aerobic
processes are 1, 20 and 20 days, respectively, and the organic
loading of an open tank digester is in the range of 0.8e1.0 kg BOD/
m3 per day (Khalid and Wan Mustafa, 1992). On the other hand,
a closed tank digester (1500e4200 m3) is operated as a conventional high rate system with an organic loading of 4.8 kg volatile
solids/m3 per day. The HRT is approximately 10 days, for operation
at 42e50 C.
The extended aeration is very efcient in the removal of
nitrogen, particularly the ammoniacal nitrogen. However, the
nitrogen may have been converted to nitrate (nitrication) or
driven off the system as ammonia gas (Ma and Ong, 1985). Ugoji
(1997) found that a tank digester with a certain degree of mixing
could enhance the efciency of COD removal after 10 days of HRT.
However, only a slight increase in the efciency of COD removal
was observed for the following 15 and 20 days of HRT. Cail and
Barford (1985b) also applied a brief mixing of 40e50 rpm after
feeding in their semi-continuous reactor in order to ease the
contact between substrate and organisms.
In open tank digester system, Yacob et al. (2005) reported that
for every tonne of treated POME, an average of 5.5 kg of CH4 (or
approximately 36% of biogas) is emitted from open digesting tanks.
This value is signicantly lower than what was reported by Ma et al.
(1999), i.e. 65%. In total, an average of 5.4 l/min m2 biogas was
1473
recorded and the total CH4 emission per open digesting tank was
518.9 kg/day. The lower CH4 composition was largely attributed to
the lack of operational control and a high tendency of O2 contamination in the open digesting tanks, thereby reducing the anaerobic
degradation efciency. Fig. 6 indicates future trends in CH4 emission estimated from past crude palm oil production values and
predictions of the future. The gure shows that 0.33 million tonnes
of CH4 is expected to be emitted from open tank digesters in 2020
(Shirai et al., 2003).
Edewor (1986) attempted to review and assess the practical
value of various methods that could be used to recover the biogas or
fertilizer from POME. He suggested that the tank digester mode was
the optimal method for an anaerobic treatment of POME, as
compared to the ponding system. This is due to the digester method
being able to produce an average of 2.38 m3 of biogas for every m3
of effective digester tank volume treated each day. Moreover, the
resulting treated sludge is fed directly to the palm tree as fertilizer.
To ensure the stability of a designed process in an aerobic
digester, the retention times should be high, which in turn leads to
higher capital and operating costs. To reduce these effects, a twophase anaerobic digestion system using two reactors (acid-phase
and methane-phase digesters), arranged in series, was introduced
by Ng et al. (1985). They indicated that phase-separation through
the manipulation of retention times was more feasible for the
anaerobic digestion of POME, in comparison with dialysis techniques (Hammer and Borchardt, 1966; Schaumberg and Kirsch,
1966) and addition of inhibitors (Pohland and Mancy, 1969).
A proper start-up operation of a closed digester is a very
important aspect in ensuring a good performance of the treatment
process. Yacob et al. (2006b) created an active microbial population
in their start-up strategy by using seed sludge from the same type
of waste and hence reducing the acclimatization period as well as
the HRT, as compared to the existing open digester which operates
at an HRT of 20 days (Yacob et al., 2005). According to Tabatabaei
et al. (2009), Methanosaeta concilii is the most abundant methanogen in POME anaerobic digestion and that it plays an important
role in CH4 production from acetate and the optimum condition for
its growth should be considered when an attempt is made to treat
POME anaerobically. The stability of closed anaerobic digester could
be improved if a setting tank was installed and the sludge was
recycled as to provide a balanced microorganisms population for
the treatment of POME and CH4 gas production. In order to avoid
the process turning acidic and inhibiting the methanogenesis
process, higher sludge recycling rate was applied at 12 m3/day
(Sulaiman et al., 2009).
Normally, the anaerobic suspended growth digester for POME
treatment is operated under mesophilic condition (below 45 C)
(Borja et al., 1995; Cail and Barford, 1985a; Ma and Ong, 1988; Ng
et al., 1985; Yacob et al., 2006b). Thermophilic anaerobic digestion of POME has been tried previously (Borja-Padilla and Banks,
1993; Cail and Barford, 1985b; Chin and Wong, 1983; Ibrahim
et al., 1985; Yeoh, 1986) since it would be advantageous to carry
out the anaerobic digestion under thermophilic conditions within
the temperature range of 49e57 C (McCarty, 1964) with the POME
temperature varying between 45 and 70 C. It is generally recognized that thermophilic operation has the potential for a faster
bacterial growth and consequently higher treatment rates. For
example, by operating the digester under thermophilic conditions
(Cail and Barford, 1985b), the rate was four times faster than that
achieved by Cail and Barford (1985a) when a similar digester was
operated at 35 C.
According to Peyton et al. (1979), despite that more COD was
removed in a thermophilic system (8-day HRT) than in a mesophilic
digester (20-day HRT), a larger amount of soluble BOD remained in
the settled efuent. The authors assumed that this was due to the
1474
Table 7
The performance of an anaerobic digestion or treatment.
Parameters
Retention Temperature Organic COD

time
( C)
loading
Inuent
(day)
rate
(mg/l)
(g COD/l
day)
Anaerobic suspended growth processes
Completed mixed reactors
Semi-continuous digester
35
5.6
References
TSS
Oil and grease
Overall
Inuent Overall
Inuent Overall
reduction (mg/l)
reduction (mg/l)
reduction
(%)
(%)
(%)
55
67,000
95.6
31,800
81.8
35
12.6
70,000
75
70,000
74
70,000
62
57
33
57
41
e
Digestion tank
5.9
45
3.11
Digestion tank
4.7
50
3.44e
92.6
93.3e
Chin and Wong

(1983)
Cail and Barford
(1985a)
Cail and Barford
(1985b)
Cail and Barford
(1985b)
Ibrahim et al.
(1985)
Ibrahim et al.
(1985)
Two-phase anaerobic digesters

(acid- methane-phase)
Two-phase anaerobic digesters
(acid- methane-phase)
Tank digester
Tank digester
Anaerobic digesterb
(1 10)
32
62,934
78
26,456
52
Ng et al. (1985)
(1 30)
10
30
15e16
32
e
e
27e30
e
e
e
62,934
54,510
54,510
26,150e
85
93.6
97.7
91e
26,456
e
e
e
69
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
4.3
55
15.1
65,000
85
Completely mixed reactors
50.0
35
48,200
83.4
Completely mixed reactorsb
8.3
35
5800
96.6
Tank digester with certain degree of mixing

Open digesting tank
30
20
e
e
e
e
83,570
43,288
97.7
80.7
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
Semi-commercial closed anaerobic digester
17
37e42
<5
Ng et al. (1985)
Edewor (1986)
Edewor (1986)
Ma and Ong
(1988)
Borja-Padilla
and Banks
(1993)
Borja et al.
(1995)
Borja et al.
(1995)
Ugoji (1997)
Yacob et al.
(2005)
Yacob et al.
(2006b)
6.2
69,000
96.2
6.2
17,250
90.7
Upow anaerobic lter
35
11.4
69,000
91
Upow anaerobic lterc
15
35
1.2
19,500
93
Anaerobic lterc
35
10
10,000
98.5
35
20
20,000
85.0
Anaerobic uidized bed reactorc
0.5
35
10
5000
93.0
Anaerobic uidized bed reactorc
Attached growth anaerobic processes

Immobilized cell bioreactor
Immobilized cell bioreactor
Anaerobic lter
1.8e
>95
0.25
35
40
10,000
78.0
20,000
48
Upow anaerobic contact lterc
20,000
73
35
10.6
42,500
96
35
30
>90
35
60
<80
35
10.85
24,849
84.6
62.5
2200
72.7
10
1.60
16,000
95.3
410
91.3
35
91
Upow anaerobic contact lter
Anaerobic sludge blanket processes

One-stage up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket
reactor
Two-stage up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket
reactorsc
Two-stage up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket
reactorsc
Anaerobic bafed reactord
Modied anaerobic bafed reactor
Expanded granular sludge bed reactor
2.5
17.5
5000e35,000
3417
Borja and Banks

(1994b)
Borja and Banks
(1994b)
Borja and Banks
(1994c)
Borja and Banks
(1994c)
Borja and Banks
(1995)
Borja and Banks
(1995)
Borja and Banks
(1995)
Borja and Banks
(1995)
Vijayaraghavan
and Ahmad
(2006)
Vijayaraghavan
and Ahmad
(2006)
Borja and Banks
(1994a)
Borja et al.
(1996b)
Borja et al.
(1996b)
Setiadi et al.
(1996)
Faisal and Unno
(2001)
Zhang et al.
(2008a)
1475
Table 7 (continued )
Parameters
Retention Temperature Organic COD

time
( C)
loading
Inuent
(day)
rate
(mg/l)
(g COD/l
day)
Membrane separation anaerobic
treatment process
Membrane anaerobic system
References
TSS
Oil and grease
Overall
Inuent Overall
Inuent Overall
reduction (mg/l)
reduction (mg/l)
reduction
(%)
(%)
(%)
3.15
35
21.7
68,310
92.1
Fakhru'l-Razi
and Noor
(1999)
Hybrid anaerobic treatment process

Anaerobic hybrid digester
3.5
16.2
56,700
92.3
Upow anaerobic sludge xed lm reactorc
1.5
38
23.15
34,725
89.5
Optimized up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm

reactord (POME was pre-treated via
coagulation and occulation)
Upow anaerobic sludge xed lm reactorc
1.5
38
9.3
13,880
92.62
38
34.73
34,725
80.6
2.2
38
12.9
28,640
95.1
Borja et al.
(1996a)
Najafpour et al.
(2006)
Zinatizadeh
et al. (2006a,
2007a)
Zinatizadeh
et al. (2006b)
Zinatizadeh
et al. (2007a)
Optimized up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm

reactord (POME was pre-treated via
sedimentation)
a
b
c
d
e
Sterilizer condensate is treated.
Diluted POME is treated.
Pretreated POME is treated.
BOD loading rate (g BOD/l day), BOD (mg/l) and BOD reduction (%) are used.
increased liberation of cell components, such as oils, which were

not degraded at the shorter HRT. However, this explanation would
appear unlikely, as mentioned by Cail and Barford (1985b), since
soluble COD removal efciencies in POME remained very high. Chin
and Wong (1983) found that the addition of nitrogen and phosphorous in the POME for thermophilic digestion was considered
unessential even for start-up operations. This despite that Blaak
(1981) reported that the addition of 27 mg nitrogen and 13.5 mg
P2O5/g bacteria dried solids were essential for the anaerobic
digestion of POME in order to stimulate CH4 production. It was
found by Ibrahim et al. (1985) that in the 50 C digester, only about
10e100 sulphate-reducing bacteria/ml were detectable whereas in
the digester operating at 30 C, a count of between 3 104 and
4 104 sulphate-reducing bacteria/ml was observed (Toerien et al.,
1968). This nding has an important implication on the utilization
of biogas for generating electricity through gas engine systems
where low concentrations of the highly corrosive H2S in biogas are
desirable.
The potential disadvantage of thermophilic digestion of POME

has been pointed out by Ibrahim et al. (1985). They experienced an
extensive carry-over of scum (due to the presence of oil and grease
in the raw efuent) into the gas outlet at high loading rates. Similar
observations were also encountered by Borja-Padilla and Banks
(1993), in which case a further increase in loading rates (more
than 15.1 kg COD/m3) increased the risk of blockages and sludge
otation caused by a combination of high concentrations of suspended solids in the digesters and the rapid gas production.
Sometimes, a higher temperature is totally unnecessary in the
treatment of POME. For example, POME from sterilizer condensate
could be easily treated by an anaerobic process at the ambient
temperature of 27e30 C, without adjustment of either the pH or
nutrients (Ma and Ong, 1988). The underlying explanation is
believed to be that the sterilizer condensate is more easily digestible than the mixed POME since the organic substrates in the
sterilizer condensate are mostly in solution.
Fig. 4. The anaerobic contact and aeration process; FD nal aerobic discharge, An S anaerobic sludge, Ae S aerobic sludge (Ma and Ong, 1985).
1476
Fig. 5. A schematic diagram of an anaerobic tank and land application system (Ma and Ong, 1985).
4.2.2. Attached growth anaerobic processes

Borja and Banks (1994b) have reported on the use of
immobilized-cell reactors for treating POME. In this type of bioreactor, the bacteria colonize material particles, allowing their
retention at high biomass densities. These reactors can cope with
high volumetric loads, which make them suitable for treating
wastewaters with either high or low organic strengths, such as
POME. In addition, the nature of the support material colonized by
the bacteria is important, a fact that has been emphasized by
several researchers (Fiestas et al., 1990; Huysman et al., 1983; Kida
et al., 1990; Murray and Van den Berg, 1981). The support material
inuences the production and composition of the biogas as well as
the proportions in which the different types of microorganisms
develop (Maestrojuan et al., 1986). Furthermore, it has previously
been unnecessary to dilute POME in order to obtain a high efciency of COD removal. The average biodegradable substrate was
found to be 95.7% of the inuent showing the efciency of anaerobic digestion when saponite (0.4e0.8 mm diameter) was
employed as the support medium. This value is considerably higher
than in other reports (Chin, 1981; Edewor, 1986; Ibrahim et al.,
1985; Ng et al., 1985).
An anaerobic lter is another type of attach growth anaerobic
process that has been tried in laboratory scale for the treatment of
POME (Borja and Banks, 1994c, 1995; Mustapha et al., 2003;
Vijayaraghavan and Ahmad, 2006). The anaerobic lter presents
several important characteristics (Russo et al., 1985; Young and
McCarty, 1969) that have proven extremely useful for treating
POME-type efuents. Borja and Banks (1994c) observed that all
substrate in the POME could be removed within the rst 0.4 m,
which corresponded to merely 21% of the lter height. Jennet and
Dennis (1975) and Russo et al. (1985), working respectively with
pharmaceutical wastes and distillery wastewater, reported similar
Fig. 6. Estimation of methane release from both lagoon and open digesting system
(Shirai et al., 2003).
results. These ndings indicated a sequential removal of substrate

within the reactor. Mustapha et al. (2003) designed a start-up
process in a relatively short period of time for a thermophilic upow anaerobic lter. The start-up strategy was accomplished over
a sequential increase in temperature at 0.5e1.0 C per day, during
which the mesophilic bacterial seed was gradually acclimatized to
the thermophilic conditions (55 C). Microora, which was isolated
from cow dung, was used in the anaerobic contact lter treatment
of POME (Vijayaraghavan and Ahmad, 2006). Their results displayed that a maximum COD removal was obtained at pH 5. A
possible reason for the low COD removal efciency at lower pH was
the change in metabolic reaction, resulting in a shift in the intermediate production pathway from the acid production phase to the
solvent production phase (Byung and Zeikus, 1985; Khanal et al.,
2004).
The attached growth anaerobic uidized bed reactor is similar in
physical design to the up-ow expanded bed reactor with the
exception that it is operated at higher up-ow liquid velocities
(approximately 20 m/h) in order to provide a bed expansion of
almost 100% (Metcalf and Eddy, Inc., 2003). Borja and Banks (1995)
compared an anaerobic lter to an anaerobic uidized bed reactor
with respect to POME treatment. They found that the uidized bed
reactor provided a superior performance to the anaerobic lter at
higher loadings, in which case the anaerobic lter could not be
operated above 20 g COD/l day without clogging. Shorter HRT (6 h)
and better CH4 production also proved to be an advantage of
uidized bed over anaerobic lter (1.5e4.5 days) in POME treatment (Poh and Chong, 2009).
4.2.3. Anaerobic sludge blanket processes
Two major types of anaerobic sludge blanket processes, namely
the original up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) process
(Borja and Banks, 1994a; Borja et al., 1996b) and the anaerobic
bafed reactor (ABR) (Faisal and Unno, 2001; Setiadi and Faisal,
1994; Setiadi et al., 1996), have been essayed for POME treatment.
Granular sludge formation is the main distinguishing characteristics of UASB reactors as compared to other anaerobic technologies.
In spite of the advantages of granular sludge, effective treatments of
wastewater with occulant sludge UASB reactors have been documented (Goodwin et al., 2001; Sayed et al., 1984).
Borja et al. (1996b) applied the principal of a two-stage treatment using a pair of up-ow anaerobic reactors, namely acidogenic
and methanogenic UASB reactors, to treat POME and evaluate the
effect of a staged treatment on a sludge granulation. They found
that loadings as high as 60 g COD/l per day resulted in a signicant
decrease in COD removal efciency as well as in carbon ow from
long-chain fatty acids to CH4. Nonetheless, a maximum load of
around 30 g COD/l per day should ensure a highly effective
reduction in COD and an efcient acid conversion to CH4. Performance in UASB could be improved with addition of certain trace
metal, showing that trace metals are necessary for the activation of
key enzymes for methanogenesis and lack of sufcient trace metals

may result an accumulation of volatile fatty acid during POME
treatment (Zhang et al., 2008a).
The effects of a staged treatment on a sludge granulation in
UASB reactors for treating POME are noteworthy. The process of
granulation under acidogenic conditions is far less studied than in
mixed digestion although it has been reported on by a number of
authors (Cohen and Zoetemeyer, 1979; Lettinga et al., 1980). Borja
et al. (1996b) observed that the acidogenic granules were much
more fragile, appeared less dense and had a considerably lower
settling velocity as well as an offensive odor. Moreover, the granules
were devoid of multicellular laments and appeared to be bound
together by chains of large rod-shaped bacteria. The surfaces of the
granules consisted predominantly of short plump rods and various
coccus types. The methanogenic granules in UASB reactors treating
POME (Borja et al., 1996b) were similar to those previously reported
in UASB reactors treating wastewaters from food industry
(Dinopoulou and Sterrit, 1988; Dolng et al., 1986; Goodwin et al.,
1992; Wiegant and Lettinga, 1985). In this latter case, the granules consisted of networks of long multicellular laments, typical of
Methanothrix spp., with a diverse selection of rod and coccus type
bacteria trapped in a dense matrix.
A number of studies have been carried out with the ABR process
on bench and pilot scales for a wide range of water-soluble wastes
(Bachmann et al., 1985), including POME (Faisal and Unno, 2001;
Setiadi and Faisal, 1994; Setiadi et al., 1996). Setiadi et al. (1996)
reported that in the treatment of POME by ABR, a recycling of
more than 15 times was required to maintain the pH of the system
higher than 6.8 without alkalinity supplementation. This imposed
recycling was an effective means of reducing alkalinity requirements and inhibiting methanogenic microorganisms. Without
sufcient recycling, about 9 g NaOH was needed per liter POME to
maintain the stability of the system at pH 6.8. The exact amount
differs with regard to the waste type, but usually ranges from 0.1 to
1.6 mg alkalinity (as CaCO3)/mg inuent COD (Moosbrugger et al.,
1993). The need for recycling in order to maintain the reactor
stability was suggested by Sam-Soon et al. (1991), and was
considered especially important for strong wastes like POME. The
highest recycle ratio of 25 allowed a high removal of COD as well as
of oil and grease up to 72.7% at the COD loading rate of 10.9 g/l per
day (Setiadi et al., 1996). Certain existing ABR designs, proposed by
Bachmann et al. (1985), have been modied by Faisal and Unno
(2001). The authors concluded that modied ABR could maintain
the methanogens active by keeping the volatile fatty acid concentration low (608 mg/l), especially at longer HRTs (10 days), thus
leading to a high removal of COD as well as to a reduction of grease/
oil and of the total organic carbon up to 91.3% and 95.9%,
respectively.
4.2.4. Membrane separation anaerobic treatment process
Membrane separation has been considered for anaerobic reactors but the technology is still in a development stage. Several
studies on membrane anaerobic processes for the treatment of
various wastewaters including POME (Fakhru'l-Razi and Noor,
1999) have been performed (Fakhru'l-Razi, 1994; Nagano et al.,
1992; Pillay et al., 1994; Ross et al., 1992; Strohwald and Ross,
1992). For example, an ultraltration (UF) membrane with
a molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of 200,000 was used by
Fakhru'l-Razi and Noor (1999) for biomass/efuent separation in
conjunction with an anaerobic process for the treatment of POME.
A lower operating pressure (1.5 bar) but a higher crossow velocity
(2.3 m/s) was applied in this study in order to control fouling and to
reduce solid deposition on the membrane surfaces. A high COD
removal could be obtained in the membrane anaerobic system
(MAS), but the permeate displayed a high color content with a low
1477
turbidity (less than 10 NTU), indicating that the color was due to
dissolved solids with molecular weights lower than 200,000 g/mol.
The particulate organics retained in the reactor could be liqueed
and decomposed because of the long solid retention time, which
was independent of the HRT. The HRT was mainly inuenced by the
UF membrane ux rates which directly determined the volume of
inuent that could be fed to the reactor.
4.2.5. Hybrid anaerobic treatment processes
In recent years, the interest in anaerobic hybrid technologies,
namely the combination of different anaerobic systems into a single
bioreactor, has displayed a large growth since it couples the
recovery of usable energy with good process efciency and
stability. The up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm (UASFF) reactor,
which is an anaerobic hybrid reactor, is a combination of a UASB
reactor and an immobilized cell or xed lm reactor. The UASFF can
overcome the existing deciencies faced by an original UASB
reactor. For example, the granulation of anaerobic sludge, which
usually requires a longer time (Schmidt and Ahring, 1996), was
observed within the limited operational period in the UASFF reactor
since the internal recirculation of dispersed bacteria and the
resultant high interaction among bacterial consortium could assist
in their faster agglomeration to form biogranules (Najafpour et al.,
2006). The UASFF reactor has been successfully used for treating
various wastewaters such as swine (Lo et al., 1994), POME (Borja
et al., 1996a; Najafpour et al., 2006; Zinatizadeh et al., 2006a,b,
2007a,b) and slaughterhouse wastewater (Borja et al., 1998).
The UASFF reactor has been shown to be highly efcient in the
treatment of POME although at lower HRT. The best option to
achieve high solid retention time while maintaining HRT at low
levels is biomass immobilization, which is applied in the UASFF
reactor in the form of granular sludge and biolm attached on the
packing (Zinatizadeh et al., 2007b). Borja et al. (1996a) used an
anaerobic hybrid digester, in which the bottom two-thirds were
occupied by a sludge blanket and the upper one-third by
submerged PVC rings, to treat POME under mesophilic conditions.
A high COD removal could be achieved at an HRT of 3.5 days,
however, a decreasing digester efciency was observed along with
accumulation of propionic acid. Najafpour et al. (2006) were able to
shorten the start-up period to 26 days in a UASFF reactor obtaining
a removal efciency of 85% at 23.15 g COD/l per day. This can be
compared with a study carried out by Borja and Banks (1994a)
concerning a UASB reactor where a COD removal efciency of
more than 90% at 1.27 g COD/l per day was achieved after a longer
start-up period, i.e. 30 days. Najafpour et al. (2006) and Zinatizadeh
et al. (2006b) also concluded that a high COD removal could be
obtained at a low HRT in a UASFF reactor. The complete digestion of
raw POME without pre-treatment demanded a high HRT, which
was not easily obtained due to the high volume of POME production
by most factories (Zinatizadeh et al., 2006a, 2007a).
A higher COD removal could be achieved with a shorter HRT
when the raw POME was pre-treated physically (sedimentation) or
chemically (chemical coagulation and occulation) prior to the
anaerobic treatment in the UASFF reactor (Zinatizadeh et al.,
2007a). Zinatizadeh et al. (2007a) noted that the chemical pretreatment approach was more predictable, reliable and practical
as the sludge produced was readily compressible and thus easier to
separate as opposed to in the physical pre-treatment approach.
The internal packing and the high ratio of efuent recycling
were understood to be the two main factors controlling the stability
of the UASFF reactor at high organic loadings (Najafpour et al.,
2006). On the other hand, Zinatizadeh et al. (2006a) stated that
the anaerobic digestion in up-ow reactors also depended on the
feed ow rate, the up-ow velocity, the inuent COD concentration,
the alkalinity and the biomass concentration, with the most critical
1478
Table 8
The performance of a physicochemical treatment process.
Sedimentation and centrifugation

Sedimentation for 30 minb
Centrifugation at 10,000g for 60 min
Centrifugationc
Coagulation and occulation
0.1 g/L Magnaoc LT22 polymerb
0.1 g/L Magnaoc LT22 polymer
0.3 g/L FeCl3b
0.05 g/L Zetag-92 polymer
0.032 g/L synthesized polyacrylamides
(485 C/g)
1.445% (v/v) Envioc 40L alum 0.029%
(v/v) Prooc CX822 occulant activated
carbon
0.5 g/L chitosan powder
8 g/L alum
6 g/L polyaluminum chloride
3.469 g/L MOAE 6.736 g/L occulant NALCO
7751 (optimized conditions)
6 g/L alum
6 g/L MOAEe
4 g/L MOAE 7 g/L occulant NALCO 7751
4 g/L MOAE 7 g/L occulant NALCO 7751
Electrocoagulation
Single polymer system
Dual polymer system
Floatation
Electrootation for 3 h
Electrootation for 3 h
Dissolved air oatation
Dissolved air oatation c
Dissolved air oatation after chemical
occulation c,g
Colloidal gas aphrons (LUX akes) b
Operational
conditions
Parameters
Temperature pH
( C)
COD
Inuent
(mg/l)
References
TSS
Oil and grease
Overall
Inuent
reduction (%) (mg/l)
25
5
e
5.0
e
e
12,000
43,000
1336
43
40
30
25
25
5.0
5.0
13,400
12,000
63
49
5310
5090
30
30
70
e
3.56 57,000 z62

3.56 e
e
3.56 e
e
3
z65,950
54
RTd
26e30
26e30
26e30
e
50,000
4.5
4.5
4.5
5
e
e
e
e
5090 61
25,300 100
657 86
30
30
30
70
e
RT
RT
5
5
5
5
e
e
e
40,200
66
40,200
52.2
40,200
52.5
40,200 z42
36,800
30
38,000
53.68
38,000
55.79
e
e
29e31
e
e
4
10
e
e
e
50,600
30
50,600
50
f
22,000 80f
9870
79.2
9870
94.7
Overall
reduction (%)
e
8500
50
e
94
92
Karim and Hie (1987)

22,000
22,000
22,000
z28,250
97
84
98
98.7
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
Ng et al. (1987)
Ng et al. (1987)
Ng et al. (1987)
Arifn et al. (2005)
59,350
99.9
2000
95.0
Ahmad et al. (2005b)
990 (1:10)
990 (1:10)
990 (1:10)
17,927
98
89
93
99.0
2000
2000
2000
99
99
99

Bhatia et al. (2007a)
e
e
17,927 89
17,927 95
17,927 99.3
17,927 z98
e
14,800 99.60
14,800 99.66
e
e
e
e
e
e
34,000 90
3570 94.4
3570 97.0
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
Ho and Chan (1986)

Ho and Chan (1986)
Ng et al. (1988)
Ho and Tan (1989)
Ho and Tan (1989)
Subramaniam
(1990)
Subramaniam
(1990)
Subramaniam
(1990)
Subramaniam
(1990)
2658
e
e
98.9
e
e
3700
3700
99.60
99.66
30
5.0
5000
96
Colloidal gas aphrons (LUX akes)
30
5.0
7500
92
Colloidal gas aphrons (LUX akes)
70
5.0
5000 z60
Colloidal gas aphrons (LUX akes) 0.05 g/L

alum b
Adsorption
30
5.0
7500
26e30
5.0
z2000
z99
2 g/L chitosan ake
26e30
5.0
z2000
z99
0.03 g/L synthetic rubber powder b

8 g/L bentonite
12 g/L activated carbon
Other physicochemical methods
One stage extraction by n-heptane
One stage extraction by n-pentane
Hydrolysis by 5% HCl
Depth ltration (stone)
27
e
e
e
7
4.5
4.5
4.5
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
850
2000
2000
2000
z88
99
99
99
RT
RT
75
RT
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
Depth ltration (stone sand)
RT
Depth ltration (stone sand) surface

ltration
RT
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
94
e
10,000
10,000
10,000
99.8
99.3
99.7
70,900
35.5
25,800
80.9
e
e
e
e
70,900
42.3
25,800
96.7
70,900
45.3
25,800
97.3
Diluted POME is treated.
RT room temperature.
MOAE M. oleifera seeds after oil extraction.
BOD (mg/l) and BOD reduction (%) are used.
1.83 103 mg/dm3 of aluminum salt and 2.5 mg/dm3 of polyelectrolyte C are used.

Ho and Tan (1983)
Wong et al. (2002b)
85.0
e
e
e
e
Overall
Inuent
reduction (%) (mg/l)
e
e
e
65
58
53.57
e
Bhatia et al. (2007b)

Agustin et al. (2008)
Ahmad et al. (2008)
Ahmad et al. (2008)
et al.
et al.
et al.
et al.
Ahmad et al. (2003c,

2004, 2005e)
Ahmad et al. (2004,
2005e)
Ahmad et al. (2005a)
Ahmad et al. (2005f)
Hameed et al. (2001)
Hameed et al. (2001)
Wong et al. (2002a)
Wu et al. (2006b,
2007)
Wu et al. (2006b,
2007)
Wu et al. (2006b,
2007)
emphasis on the rst two of the above-mentioned parameters. The

optimum conditions for the treatment of pre-treated POME via
chemical coagulation and occulation in terms of COD removal in
a UASFF reactor were found to be 2.45 l/d and 0.75 m/h for the feed
ow rate and the up-ow velocity, respectively (Zinatizadeh et al.,
2006a, 2007a). As a comparison, Zinatizadeh et al. (2007a) found
that the optimum conditions for the treatment of pre-treated POME
via sedimentation in terms of COD removal in a UASFF reactor were
1.65 l/d and 0.6 m/h for the feed ow rate and the up-ow velocity,
respectively.
The development of microbial granules can also be affected by
conditions affecting the operation of the reactor (Liu et al., 2003). In
the treatment of POME, Najafpour et al. (2006) postulated that the
gas bubbles produced from the sludge blanket, the cell precipitation from the middle part of the xed lm and the large content of
suspended solids of POME were the reasons for the high driving
force successfully enhancing a rapid microbial granulation in the
UASFF reactor.
4.3. Physicochemical treatment
The treatment of POME is, however, not limited to biological
processes. Physicochemical treatments have also received some
attention, since they have been used earlier to varying degrees of
success (Hemming, 1977; Webb et al., 1976). Physicochemical
treatment processes would be particularly useful in applications
where it is desired to combine an efuent treatment with the
recovery of POME solids, in which case the recovered solids could
be reused as fertilizer and animal feed. The suggested physicochemical treatment processes for POME include sedimentation,
centrifugation, coagulation, occulation, otation and adsorption.
The performance of such a physicochemical treatment process is
summarized in Table 8.
4.3.1. Sedimentation and centrifugation
Karim and Hie (1987) as well as Ng et al. (1987) found that POME
did not settle well, which resulted in a slight reduction of total
suspended solid (TSS) without the aid of a coagulant. The settleability of the raw POME, which is dened as the ratio between the
depth of the supernatant layer and the original height of the POME
suspension in a measuring cylinder, was only 20% after 20 h (Ng
et al., 1987). Ho and Tan (1989) also agreed that POME hardly
settled under gravitational conditions they suggested that clarifying POME without the aid of coagulants would not be a viable
technique. However, the POME could be settled forcefully in
a shorter period of time by centrifugation. When raw POME was
centrifuged at 15,000 rpm for 30 min at room temperature, it could
be separated into a thin layer of oil, a clear brownish solution
(supernatant) and a compact mass (residue) (Mashitah et al., 2002).
Preliminary investigations indicated that centrifugation at high
speed (10,000g) and low temperature (5 C) would simultaneously
cream the oil droplets and sediment the suspended and colloidal
particles of the POME (Ho and Tan, 1983). Analysis of the oil-free
supernatant that contained all the soluble constituents of the
efuent displayed a 40% and 100% reduction in COD and TSS,
respectively, as a result of the centrifugation. However, results
obtained by Wong et al. (2002b) showed corresponding values of
only 30% and 86%, respectively.
4.3.2. Coagulation and occulation
Before applying any of the physical liquidesolid separation
processes with any degree of success, the POME suspension would
have to be destabilized and the particles encouraged to occulate
and form larger aggregates. Karim and Hie (1987) reported that
treatment of POME with 80e100 mg/l Magnaoc LT22 cationic
1479
polymer reduced the turbidity, COD, total solids and TSS of the
POME up to 96%, 63%, 53% and 93.5%, respectively. However,
a chemical treatment with a combination of an inorganic salt
(FeCl3) and polymer (Magnaoc LT22) did not help to further
reduce the pollution strength of the POME as compared to the use
of the Magnaoc LT22 polymer alone. Ng et al. (1987) found that
aluminum sulphate (alum) was signicantly more effective than
polymers and lime in terms of settleability in the coagulation of
POME but that the polymers should be viewed more favorably as
they do not require pH adjustment and since the amount of added
chemicals was signicantly less. Ng et al. (1987) also discovered
that increasing the temperature up to 70 C unexpectedly led to the
highest TSS removal by the Zetag-92 polymer. It was possible that
the high level of solids in the POME afforded a certain protection to
the polymer, leading to an incomplete hydrolysis of the polyacrylamide chains. According to Ahmad et al. (2003b, 2005b), pretreatment processes consisting of coagulationeocculation and
adsorption using activated carbon played a signicant role in the
pre-treatment of POME before the membrane ltration process.
The pre-treated POME was found to be odorless and the color
became a palish yellow as opposed to the actual raw POME, which
had a dark brown color and a pungent smell (Ahmad et al., 2005b).
A full-factorial central composite design was chosen by Ahmad
et al. (2005c) to explain the effect and interaction of three factors,
namely the coagulant dosage, the occulant dosage and the pH. The
design enabled the determination of optimized parameters, where
78% of water recovery with a 20 NTU turbidity value could be
obtained at an optimum dosage of coagulant, occulant and pH, i.e.
at 15 g/l, 0.3 g/l and 6, respectively. Later, Ahmad et al. (2008)
showed that the inorganic coagulant could actually be completely
replaced with water-soluble organic polymers in POME pre-treatment by using direct occulation without the need of pH adjustment under applied shear. The direct occulation process
signicantly reduced the treatment cost by a factor of 3.6 compared
to the conventional coagulationeocculation process.
Arifn et al. (2005) synthesized cationic polyacrylamides of
varying charge densities in order to assess the occulation effectiveness of POME. It was found that by varying the charge density of
the polymer from 48.2 to 485 C/g, the occulant's performance
could be signicantly affected in which case the cationic polyacrylamide with the highest charge density (485 C/g) enabled the
highest performance of POME treatment with a dosage as low as
32 mg/l at pH 3. By using the synthesized cationic polyacrylamides,
Arifn et al. (2003) found that the occule size increased with
increasing polymer dosage, polymer molecular weight and polymer charge density, and this larger occule size was expected to
improve the treatment efciency. However, the higher molecular
weight cationic polyacrylamide (over 5 million g/mol) produced
very poor occule formation as a result of polyelectrolytes with
very high molecular weights not becoming readily dissolved but
rather tending to form gel clumps (Arifn et al., 2004). Ahmad et al.
(2006b) carried out a comparative study between chitosan, alum
and polyaluminum chloride (PAC) for the removal of the residual oil
and TSS found in the POME. Their results proved that chitosan was
comparatively more efcient and economical as opposed to alum
and PAC. Krishnan et al. (2006) tested the digestibility of a sludge
resulting from the coagulation process when alum was used as the
coagulant and a cationic polyelectrolyte was the coagulant aid in an
anaerobic digester. The results showed that the anaerobic biomass,
when subjected to varying alum dosage in the coagulated palm oil
sludge, did not exhibit inhibition as a result of the digester
performance being in conformity with the regular treatment
process. Bhatia et al. (2007a,b) also utilized an environmental
friendly and natural coagulant, namely Moringa oleifera seeds, in
the pre-treatment of POME. M. oleifera seeds after oil extraction
1480
(MOAE) gave rise to a high removal of TSS and a signicant

reduction in COD. An even higher removal of TSS could be obtained
by combining MOAE with the biodegradable occulant NALCO
7751. Bhatia et al. (2007a) employed a response surface methodology to optimize the POME treatment using a M. oleifera seed
extract and occulant. It was found that a high removal of TSS and
recovery of the sludge could be obtained when the process variables were chosen as follows: pH 5, settling time 114 min, M. oleifera dosage 3469 mg/l and occulant dosage 6736 mg/l. The
recovered sludge could be reused as an organic fertilizer. Bhatia
et al. (2007b) also found that an increase in operation temperature from 30 to 70 C reduced the efciency of the coagulationeocculation process. This might be due to the particle transport
processes or particle collision rates and through the effect on
viscosity (concentration) in POME. The occule strength became
weaker with the increase in temperature and the macrooccule
could be easily broken.
Electrocoagulation offers an alternative to the use of metal salts
or polymers and polyelectrolyte addition for breaking stable
emulsions and suspensions. Agustin et al. (2008) used electrocoagulation for the treatment of POME, in which case aluminum
and sodium chloride were used as electrodes and supporting
electrolyte, respectively. This study shows that electrocoagulation
not only could treat POME to some extent but also reduce the
contents of heavy metals and phenolic compounds from the POME.
4.3.3. Flotation
Ho and Chan (1986) reported on electrootation of POME at pH
4 and 10 using a lead dioxide-titanium anode and a stainless steel
cathode. Approximately half of the original COD was removed at pH
10 within 3 h of electrolysis and prolonging the electrolysis to 20 h
only slightly improved the removal. The higher overall COD
removal for the electrolyzed dispersion at pH 10 was in fact mainly
due to an improved electrootation of the suspended particles,
mostly plant cell debris and enmeshed oil droplets at higher pH. Ng
et al. (1988) suggested that it was technically feasible to use dissolved air otation for liquidesolid separation in POME treatment
but a higher pressure (560 kPa) or recycle ratio (exceeding 6) was
required in order to maintain a 90% TSS removal. Some disagreement exists concerning the effectiveness of dissolved air oatation
for the removal of TSS from POME. Sufcient data and information
on experimental conditions have often been unavailable, making
a critical assessment of the process difcult (Hemming, 1977;
Thillaimuthu, 1976). While Hemming (1977), Ho and Tan (1989)
as well as Thillaimuthu (1976), suggested that chemical occulation assisted dissolved air oatation through signicant removal of
TSS, Chooi (1979), on the other hand, reported that dissolved air
oatation with or without chemical occulants has been
unsuccessful. According to Ho and Tan (1989), the removal efciency of COD could be signicantly increased if chemical occulation was used prior to the dissolved air oatation process since
the inorganic coagulant together with the polymeric occulant
could destabilize the particulates and the developed occules could
adhere to the micro-bubbles thus resulting in a better rate of
oatation of the suspended occules. Subramaniam et al. (1990)
used colloidal gas aphrons (CGAs), a suspension of microalgae
and suspensions of three inorganic minerals to clarify POME. In all
cases (for either diluted or undiluted POME), a removal of suspended solids of about 95% could be obtained (some 10 min after
the sparging of the CGA ceased). This was despite the fact that the
quantity of CGA sparged at the lowest solids concentration was less
than that used at the higher concentration. Subramaniam et al.
(1990) also found that the treatment performance deteriorated at
an increasing rate as the temperature was increased. In their study,
the addition of alum gave rise to minor improvements in solid
removal and its use would appear to be justied only when it was
desirable to recover as much solids as possible or to achieve the
greatest possible degree of clarication.
4.3.4. Adsorption
Ahmad et al. (2003c, 2004) reported on a high removal of
residual oil from POME by using chitosan. These results agree well
with those of Ahmad et al. (2005e), who further stated that the
powder form of chitosan with a mesh size below 120 exhibited
a greater rate of adsorption of residual oil from POME as compared
to the ake type with a size smaller 2.0 mm. Ahmad et al. (2005f)
carried out a comparative study between chitosan, bentonite and
activated carbon for the removal of residual oil and TSS in POME, in
which chitosan was found to be the best adsorbent of the three.
This phenomenon was due to the high and intense agitation,
believed to cause the adsorbents to break up and reintroduce the oil
residue to the system (Divakaran and Pillai, 2001). Ahmad et al.
(2005a) used a synthetic rubber powder to adsorb the residual oil
in POME although the rubber by itself is seldom used as an
adsorbent. The adsorption processes with both the chitosan
(Ahmad et al., 2005e) and the synthetic rubber powder (Ahmad
et al., 2005a) tted very well with the Freundlich model. Osuidea
et al. (2006) compared the adsorption properties of sawdust
modied with propenoic acid to those of the activated carbon
powder in the tertiary treatment of POME, which was previously
claried with iron(III) chloride and lime. They found that the activated carbon powder had a somewhat better efciency with
respect to the POME treatment, but both adsorbents yielded a clear
efuent with a wider reuse applicability after the application of
optimum adsorption conditions.
4.3.5. Other physicochemical methods
Extraction processes with n-pentane, n-hexane and n-heptane
were carried out by Hameed et al. (2001) with the aim of treating
and recovering residual palm oil from POME. n-Heptane was
determined to be the most effective solvent in the extraction
process, followed by n-hexane and n-pentane. Wong et al. (2002a)
conducted a preliminary experiment using acidication and
hydrolysis of the raw POME with diluted HCl. The settled solution
was segregated into two phases and the percentage of oil in the
light phase of the treated samples was generally higher than in the
heavy phase. This clearly indicated the effect of HCl on freeing the
entrapped oil from the solid particles of POME. Later, Wong et al.
(2009b) found that the elevated operating temperature of the
treatment (95 C) enhanced the oil separation from the emulsion
and the introduction of magnet would produce higher rate of
otation than that of without magnet even in the absence of
stirring. Wu et al. (2006b, 2007) and Mohammad et al. (2009) used
depth and surface ltration to pre-treat raw POME. The combination of pre-treatment processes showed promising results in
reducing TSS and turbidity but only a small reduction of the total
dissolved solids could be achieved with this method.
4.4. Membrane ltration process
The membrane ltration process for treating POME has never
been applied on an industrial scale due to the fact that POME
contains large amounts of suspended solids (Ahmad et al., 2003b)
and a macrosolute-like protein (Wu et al., 2007), which would
eventually foul and degrade the membrane during the treatment.
Therefore, a pre-treatment of raw POME is usually applied prior to
the membrane ltration process. For examples, Wong et al. (2002b)
applied three separate pre-treatment methods, namely ltration,
centrifugation and coagulation before treating POME with the
ultraltration membrane. It was found that the combination of
ltrationeultraltration treatment of POME produced the besttreated sample quality in terms of pollutant contents elimination.
Ahmad et al. (2003a, b) designed a pilot plant for POME treatment
where two stages of treatment were conducted. Chemical coagulation and adsorption played their roles during the rst stage as
membrane pre-treatment processes whereas ultraltration and
reverse osmosis techniques were combined in the second stage as
membrane ltration processes. Wu et al. (2006b, 2007) and
Mohammad et al. (2009) applied physical pre-treatment processes
consisting of depth and surface ltrations prior to the treatment of
POME with the ultraltration membrane. In addition to the treatment of POME, Wu et al. (2006b, 2007) also discovered that the
ultraltration process was able to recover protein and carbohydrate
from pre-treated POME, up to 61.4% and 76.4%, respectively, at an
applied pressure of 8 bar. Zhang et al. (2008b) adopted a two-stage
system to treat POME, with anaerobic expanded granular sludge
bed reactor as the rst biological stage as well as ultraltration and
reverse osmosis processes as the second stage. After the whole
treatment processes, organic matters, suspended solids and color
were removed almost entirely, only trace amount of dissolved
solids, except K and Na, were detected.
According to Ahmad et al. (2005b), both ceramic (10,000
MWCO) and polyvinylidene diuoride (200,000 MWCO)
membranes were able to reject suspended solid contents exceeding
97%, regardless of the imposed transmembrane pressure and
crossow velocity. In total, the ceramic membrane performed
better than the polyvinylidene diuoride one in the treatment of
pre-treated POME. This might be due to the higher MWCO for the
polyvinylidene diuoride membrane (200,000 MWCO) as
compared to that of the ceramic membrane (10,000 MWCO) thus
allowing the passage of more organic matter into the permeate
stream. Besides, a higher membrane resistance in the ceramic as
compared to in the polyvinylidene diuoride membrane due to
membrane properties such as thickness and hardness might also
contribute to these results. Ahmad et al. (2005d) stated that the
critical ux value increased with the increase in crossow velocity.
This nding was parallel with the literature reports implying that
the critical ux is dependent on numerous parameters such as
suspension properties (particle size and concentration), surface
interaction (ionic strength, zeta potential, pH) and hydrodynamic
conditions (crossow velocity) (Bacchin, 2004). The determined
values were important as optimized parameters for a membrane
pilot plant in the treatment of POME (Ahmad et al., 2005d). Ahmad
et al. (2006a) reclaimed the drinking water from POME by using
membrane ltration processes (ultraltration and reverse osmosis)
coupled with coagulation and occulation as pre-treatment steps.
The study showed that a water recovery from POME of approximately 78% could be obtained with a great reduction in terms of
pollutants. Pollutant contents were below the maximum contaminant level set by the USEPA for drinking water standards. Reverse
osmosis gave rise to a high efciency in the COD removal in pretreated POME due to the signicant rejection of carbohydrate
constituents, protein and ammoniacal nitrogen in order to achieve
the desired water quality (Ahmad et al., 2007). Ahmad et al. (2007)
pointed out that it was possible to predict the performance of
reverse osmosis, in terms of COD removal in pre-treated POME,
through complex organic solutions. This was done by applying the
coupled model of concentration polarization and the extended
SpieglereKedem model while considering soluteesolute
interactions.
Signicant reductions in ux for short time periods during the
membrane ltration of pre-treated POME indicated a development
of membrane fouling (Ahmad et al., 2005b, 2006a, 2007; Suwandi,
1993; Wu et al., 2007; Mohammad et al., 2009). Due to this
membrane fouling, the long-term ux decline followed a general
1481
trend: it started with a steep decline followed by a gradual decrease

and approached its nal value asymptotically (Suwandi, 1993).
According to Ahmad et al. (2005b), the ux decline was due to cake
build-up (Mikulsek et al., 2004) and deposition of small particles
and colloids on the membrane surface (Balakrishnan et al., 2000),
which led to membrane fouling. However, Wu et al. (2007) stated
that pore-blocking might play a signicant role in protein fouling of
the membrane during the treatment of pre-treated POME. They
found that, after ultraltration of pre-treated POME, all the
membranes showed denser pore structures, suggesting the occurrence of pore-blocking especially when being compared to scanning electron micrographs of the clean ultraltration membrane. In
general, such membrane fouling causes an increase in the
membrane cleaning cost, process down time as well as the
membrane damage due to the frequency and harshness of the
cleaning conditions (Maartens et al., 2002). Contrarily, Wu et al.
(2007) found that the occurred fouling not only improved the
treatment of pre-treated POME but also enhanced the recovery of
protein and carbohydrate from the wastewater. Mohammad et al.
(2009) also concluded that hydrophobic ultraltration membrane
with the highest MWCO (20,000 MWCO) and operated at the
highest applied pressure (10 bar) gave the best performance of
POME treatment and protein recovery. The performance of the
membrane ltration process together with the corresponding pretreatment process(es) is summarized in Table 9.
5. Discussion
The discussion about POME treatment is mainly based on an
end-of-pipe strategy. Although a few methods have been
proposed by a number of researchers, the ponding system is still
the most common POME treatment system, used by more than 85%
of the palm oil mills in Malaysia (Ma and Ong, 1985). This may be
due to the fact that large area of lands in Malaysia and Indonesia
could be used as pond areas for POME treatment. Table 10 shows
the advantages and disadvantages for each POME treatment
processes. It can be observed that ponding system is more
economically viable and have the capacity to tolerate a wider range
of OLR (Poh and Chong, 2009). However, the major concern about
the ponding system is the uncontrollable release of large amounts
of CH4 and CO2 into the atmosphere from open ponds, which may
worsen the effect of global warming. The emission rate of CH4 from
the pond is about 6.54 kg/t fresh fruit bunch, equivalent to 137.4 kg
carbon dioxide released into the air (Schuchardt et al., 2008). Fig. 6
indicates future trends of CH4 emission estimated from past crude
palm oil production and predictions of the future. The gure estimates that 0.36 million tons of CH4 will be emitted from POME
treatment ponds in 2020 (Shirai et al., 2003). Since the greenhouse
effect of CH4 is approximately 20 times that of the global warming
potential for 100 years with respect to CO2 (Milich, 1999), the
greenhouse effect from ponding systems in Malaysia would be
equivalent to 7.2 million tonnes of CO2 emission by the year of 2020.
It is therefore wise to convert ponding and open tank digesters
systems into closed tank systems or high-rate bioreactors, thus
enabling biogas recovery by sealing the tank or using a bioreactor
through application of a Clean Development Mechanism project.
The total cost for sealing the open digester tanks, gas storage,
electric power generation unit, accessories and power distribution,
etc., for such a project at Serting Hilir Mill has been estimated at RM
7.9 million or US$ 2.08 million (Shirai et al., 2003). The electricity
generated from the biogas could be sold for the green price that
was set by the government at RM 0.16 for 1 kW h (Malaysian
Electricity Supply Industry Trust Account, 2000), in the effort to
encourage the use of electricity originating from biomass.
1482
Table 9
The performance of a membrane ltration process together with the corresponding pre-treatment process(es).
Membrane characteristics
Operational conditionsb
Parametersc
References
COD
TSS
Molecular weight cut off

(MWCO)
Temperature Applied pressure

(bar)
( C)
Inuent
(mg/l)
Overall
reduction (%)
Inuent
(mg/l)
Overall
reduction (%)
Filtrationd UFe
Cellulose ester
5000
4.5
85.6 {85.2}
667 [612]
99.2 {99.2}
Centrifugationd UF
Coagulationd UF
Coagulation occulation
(UF ROf)
UF (8 m/h)g
UF (0.8 m/h)
(UF RO) (0.1 m/s)
Cellulose ester
Cellulose ester
Ceramic(UF)
TFC(RO)
Ceramic
5000
5000
0.5e1.0 mm(UF)
99.9% NaCl retention(RO)
10,000
e
e
e
55.8 {36.5}
71.9 {49.5}
98.8 {97.3}
657 [90]
700 [150]
e
93.9 {55.5}
100 {100}
e
30
4.5
4.5
1e4.5(UF)
10e50(RO)
2
z92 {z48}
59,350 [80] z100 {>97}
Polyvinylidene
diuoride
Polyvinylidene
diuoride(UF)
TFC(RO)
Polysulphone
200,000
30
z88 {z18}
59,350 [80] z100 {>97}
200,000(UF)
25(UF)
2(UF)
1,336
[1,306]
1,336 [931]
1,448 [806]
26,107
[11,460]
50,000
[7,500]
50,000
[7,500]
50,000
[15,000]
99.8 {99.4}

20,000
25(RO)
25
45(RO)
8
77.2 {57.0}
99.9 {97.7}
100,000(UF)
25
2(UF)
13(RO)
25,800
[700]
11,780
[289.6]
adsorption
adsorption
adsorption
Depth ltration (stone sand) surface

ltration UF
Anaerobic expanded granular sludge bed
reactor (UF RO)
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
70,900
[37,633]
32,520
[774.9]
z100 {z100}
z100 {z100}
The operational conditions are only referred to membrane ltration process.
The values in brackets, namely [ ] and { } are referred to pre-treated POME (mg/l) and % reduction of pre-treated POME after undergoing membrane ltration process(es), respectively.
UF Ultraltration.
RO Reverse osmosis.
Crossow velocity.
Wong et al.
(2002b)
Ahmad et al.
(2003a, b)
Ahmad et al.
(2005b, d)
Ahmad et al.
(2005b)
Ahmad et al.
(2006a)
Wu et al. (2006b,
2007)
Zhang et al.
(2008b)
Material
Table 10
Advantages and disadvantages of various treatment processes for POME.
Advantages
Disadvantages
References
Ponding
system
Reliable and stable.

Anaerobically digested POME
from the ponds could be used to
culture algae.
Cheap, simple to construct and
has low maintenance costs.
The energy needed to operate a
ponding system is minimal
Recovered sludge cake from pond
can be sold as fertilizer.
Agamuthu (1995); Chan and Chooi (1982); Chin et al. (1996);

Chooi (1984); Edewor (1986); John (1985); Khalid and
Wan Mustafa (1992); Ma and Ong (1985); Phang (1982);
Phang and Ong (1988); Poh and Chong (2009); Shirai et al. (2003);
Sivalingam (1980).
Aerobic
digestion
With suitable level of dissolved

oxygen, lamentous growth and
sludge bulking in POME could be
prevented.
If the oxygen input exceeds the
requirement of the aerobic
microorganisms, the system
would be more efcient with shorter
hydraulic retention time than
anaerobic digestion.
Biogas generated from a closed tank
digestercauses
circulation and mixing within the
digester.
The produced biogas from a
closed tank digester could be
harnessed for heat and generation
of electricity.
The digester liquor could be
applied to the plantation as fertilizer.
Capital investment costs of the
treatment could be reduced if the tank
volume is reduced through two-phase
fermentation.
Eliminate the requirement of cooling
facilities prior to biological treatment if
thermophilic condition is introduced
in the treatment process.
Immobilized-cell reactor:
A high COD removal (without
dilution of POME) could be
achieved at high volumetric loads
but lower HRT.
Anaerobic lter:
Handling wastewaters with high
pollution loads but less sensitive to
shock loads with lower HRT.
Overall COD removal in the
treatment of POME
Large areas of land are required, making it

unsuitable for factories located in the near
urban and other developed areas
The removal of nitrogen and solids are usually
unsatisfactory.
Dead spots or short circulations with islands of oating
solids could be found in anaerobic ponds due to an
inadequate mixing by the evolved biogas.
Difcult to control and monitor in view of their sizes and
congurations.
Sludge accumulation is usually high.
Pond maintenance is labor-intensive.
Uncontrollable release of CH4 and CO2 into the
atmosphere.
Long hydraulic retention time.
The aeration system in the aerobic digestion
is very energy intensive.
The aerobic digestion needs to be incorporated
into other treatment systems, preferably
anaerobic ones.
POME is not nutritionally balanced for the aerobic
growth of microorganisms.
Uncontrollable release of CH4 into the

environment foropen tank digester.
Imbalances might occur between acid- and
methane-forming microorganisms at short
retention times in a
typical anaerobic digester.
If thermophilic condition is applied in a
closed tank digester, high pressure build-up and
spillage of the mixed liquor through the vent
might happen.
Borja-Padilla and Banks (1993); Chin (1981); Ibrahim et al. (1985);

Khalid and Wan Mustafa (1992); Ng et al. (1985); Quah and
Gillies (1981); Yacob et al. (2005).
Immobilized-cell reactor
Very dependent on support materials in the
production and composition of biogas as well
as the proportions in which the different
types of microorganisms develop.
Anaerobic lter:
Increasing the load of POME may lead to blockage
of the lter medium in the lower part of the bed.
Anaerobic uidized bed reactor:
High power requirements for bed uidization and high
cost of carrier media.
Borja and Banks (1994b); Borja and Banks (1994c); Borja and Banks (1995);
Denac and Dunn (1988); Maestrojuan et al. (1986); Metcalf and Eddy, Inc. (2003);
Poh and Chong (2009); Russo et al. (1985); Setiadi and Arief (1992);
Setiadi et al. (1993); Sutton and Huss (1984); Young and McCarty (1969)
Anaerobic suspended
growth processes
Attached growth
anaerobic
processes
Agamuthu (1995); Ho and Tan (1988); Ma and

Ong (1985).
Treatment processes
(continued on next page)

1483
Treatment processes
Advantages
Disadvantages
References
Only bacteria that are more readily attached to the reactor

packing are selected under the highly turbulent conditions.
Difculties in maintaining biolm thicknesses and the
large amounts of energy are required to keep the
bioparticles in uidized conditions for POME treatment.
Up-ow anaerobic sludge blanket

Bachmann et al. (1985); Boopathy et al. (1988); Borja and
reactor (UASB):
Banks (1994a); Faisal and Unno (2001); Grobicki and Stuckey
Performance dependant on sludge settleability.
(1991); Liu and Tay (2004); Metcalf and Eddy, Inc. (2003);
Longer development times for anaerobic sludge
Nachaiyasit and Stuckey (1997); Poh and
granules.
Chong (2009); Setiadi et al. (1996); Zhang et al. (2008).
Foaming and otation of granular sludge at high
organic loading rate, especially after oil and grease
from the POME are absorbed on it, coupled with the abundant
biogas
bubbles adhering to it.
Granulation inhibition at high volatile fatty acid
concentration.
Excessive surface scum may form in the reactor because of
the
presence of oil and grease in the POME.
Anaerobic bafed reactor (ABR):
Sufcient recycling is needed to maintain the reactor
stability when treating POME.
Occurrence of fouling due to the long solid retention
Fakhru'l-Razi and Noor (1999); Nagano et al. (1992)
time of
the system, which allows the decomposition of the
suspended solids on the membrane.
Up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm

reactor (UASFF)
Pretreatment of POME is required as indigestible
TSS in the POME may gradually accumulate in the
reactor and reduce the overall treatment efciency.
The stability/performance of the reactor is very
depending on the internal packing, high ratio of
efuent recycling,
feed ow rate and the up-ow velocity.
Najafpour et al. (2006); Poh and Chong (2009);

Zinatizadeh et al. (2006a); Zinatizadeh et al. (2006b);
Zinatizadeh et al. (2007a).
without dilution has been found

to be very high.
Both construction and operation
as well as maintenance costs
are lower.
The treated efuent contains
minimal amounts of
suspended solids.
Biological system is able to recover
more quickly back to the condition.
Smaller reactor volume.
Anaerobic uidized
bed reactor:
High biomass concentrations
as well as relatively high mass
transfer characteristics, the handling
of shock loads and minimal space
requirements.
High organic loadings than anaerobic
lter for POME treatment.
Anaerobic sludge
Up-ow anaerobic sludge
blanket
blanket reactor (UASB):
processes
High organic loadings, short HRT
and has a low energy demand.
High removal of COD for POME
treatment.
High concentration of biomass as
granular sludge retained in the
reactor.
Anaerobic bafed reactor (ABR):
Simple and inexpensive to construct.
Stability to shock loading and a
capability of achieving high
volumetric rates.
With proper modication of ABR,
high retention time of the cells and
efcient treatment of POME could be
maintained.
Membrane separation
Production of a clear nal efuent.
anaerobic treatment process The utilization of chemical reagents
to a lesser extent.
Lower energy requirements for
maintenance.
Compactness of the equipment.
A faster start-up and plant
automation.
Hybrid anaerobic
Up-ow anaerobic sludge
treatment process
xed lm reactor (UASFF)
Shorter development times for the
granulation of
anaerobic sludge with higher
biomass retention.
High COD removal could be obtained
at a low HRT for POME treatment.
Higher organic loading rate
achievable compared to operating
UASB or anaerobic ltration alone.
1484
Treatment processes
Sedimentation
Centrifugation
Coagulation &
occulation
Adsorption
Membrane
ltration
process
Problems of clogging eliminated.

More stable operation and ability to
tolerate shock loadings.
Cheap because only gravitational
force is used.
POME could be separated into a thin
layer of oil
and a compact mass (residue).
High TSS removal from the POME.
Destabilization of POME suspension
so that larger
aggregates could be formed.
High TSS removal from the POME.
Polymers do not require pH
adjustment.
Inexpensive and readily available for
inorganic coagulants.
Natural coagulants such as chitosan
and Moringa oleifera seeds are
biodegradable
and not health-threatening materials,
which could be used as
coagulants in POME treatment.
Electrocoagulation is able to reduce the
contents of heavy metals and phenolic
compounds from the POME.
Isolation of possible phenolic
antioxidant from the coagulum of
POME is possible after the
electrocoagulation process.
Flotation together with chemical
occulation may
improve the removal of TSS from the
POME.
High removal of residual oil from
POME using chitosan.
Chitosan is very intact as compared to
activated carbon and bentonite even
after a prolonged mixing time in
POME.
The treated water or permeate of
POME could be used as possible drinking
water or recycled to the plant for
internal usage
High rejection of TSS from POME.
Smaller space requirement for
membrane treatment plant as
compared to ponding
system of POME.
Disadvantages
References
POME hardly settles even after prolonged

time periods.
Low COD removal from the POME.
Ho and Tan (1989); Karim and Hie (1987); Ng et al. (1987).
Sometimes, an increase in operation temperature

may reduce the efciency of the coagulatione
occulation process.
Inorganic coagulants are depending heavily on
suitable pH adjustment.
Inorganic coagulants create a voluminous activated
sludge, composed of metal hydrolysis products that
cannot bereadily disposed.
Removal of COD and BOD5 from POME are lower
using electrocoagulation
Agustin et al. (2008); Ahmad et al. (2006b); Ahmad et al. (2008);

Bhatia et al. (2007a, b); Ho and Tan (1989); Ng et al. (1987)
Higher pressure or recycle ratio is required to

maintain high TSS removal from the POME.
Perform well at low surface loading rates (less
than 2 m3/m3 h) and the unit would result in very
large facilities with typical ow rates of POME.
For better removal of pollutants in POME, adsorption
would be the best to combine with coagulation and
occulation processes.
Hemming (1977); Ho and Tan (1989); Ng et al. (1988); Thillaimuthu (1976);

Subramaniam et al. (1990).
Fouling and degradation of the membrane during

POME treatment.
Pre-treatment of POME is necessary to reduce
membrane fouling.
To restore membrane performance to its initial state,
cleaning of membrane using chemicals is required.
Ho and Tan (1983); Mashitah et al. (2002); Wong et al. (2002b).
Ahmad et al. (2003b, 2003c, 2004, 2005b, 2005f).
Flotation
Advantages
Ahmad et al. (2003a,b, 2005b, 2006a); Wu et al. (2007);

Poh and Chong (2009); Mohammad et al. (2009).
1485
1486
If the POME treatment through anaerobic digestion is successful

and the CH4 is harvested, the impact of the POME on environment
would be removed. POME would then become a savings to the
environment due to the reuse of the treated POME as fertilizers at
the plantations. However, CH4 is not harvested in most of the palm
oil mills due to the lacking of infrastructure to channel this excess
energy. Also, since the mills have excess energy from their biomass,
it seems that it will not be a viable move to invest a large sum of
money on a CH4 harvesting system. However, changing policies as
well as creating infrastructures and incentives by the government
may help promote the interests among the palm oil industries to
invest in CH4 harvesting system in the near future (Subramaniam
et al., 2008).
Although numerous physicochemical methods based on the
laboratory scale were proposed to treat POME, none of those
methods could actually be applied alone in palm oil mills. For
instance, coagulation, occulation and adsorption could be applied
together with membrane ltration process to produce good quality
efuent (Ahmad et al., 2003a,b) but if the physicochemical methods
are used alone on the treatment of POME, very large amount of
coagulants and adsorbents would be required which make the
overall treatment process unfeasible and uneconomical. Although
other physicochemical method such as dissolved air otation was
technically feasible to be used for liquidesolid separation in POME
treatment, it may be of limited utility in the treatment of POME in
real palm oil mill. This is because the dissolved air otation only
performs well at low surface loading rates (less than 2 m3/m3 h)
and the units would surely result in very large facilities with typical
ow rates of POME (Ng et al., 1988).
Although membrane ltration process offers a good quality of
treated POME, the main bottleneck of this treatment process is
membrane fouling. Also, membrane ltration process is not ready
to be introduced in local palm oil mills because for the time being,
there is no local membrane fabricator and the imported membrane
is expensive (Ahmad and Chan, 2009). If the membrane could be
made locally and the membrane fouling could be reduced to
a certain extent, sustainable development in the palm oil mills with
zero discharge could certainly be achieved by using innovative
membrane treatment. This is because the recovered sludge from
the pre-treatment system can be used as fertilizer and the recovered water from the membrane system can be recycled as utility or
boiler feed water. If the membrane ltration process is used for
treating POME in palm oil mill, it is advisable to choose the most
optimal design, which is a membrane system (consisted of reverse
osmosis polymeric only) operated at higher operating pressure
(45 bar) with the lowest membrane unit cost (RM 7.03/m3) (Ahmad
et al., 2009). This is because maintaining a high supply pressure is
less costly than increasing the membrane area.
Currently, end-of-pipe standards imposed through command
and control regulations are the basis of environmental legislation
(Olgun et al., 2004). However, an international trend promoting
pollution prevention through cleaner production is emerging.
Within this context, a number of researchers proposed that
a wastewater management based on the promotion of environmentally sound biotechnologies could be included as a part of the
POME management in Malaysia in order to attain a sustainable
development. The reuse of POME in bioprocessing is possible
because POME contains high concentrations of carbohydrate,
protein, nitrogenous compounds, lipids and minerals (Habib et al.,
1997; Hwang et al., 1978; Phang, 1990; Wu et al., 2006a, 2009a, b)
that may be converted into useful materials through microbial
processes (Agamuthu and Tan, 1985). POME and its derivative have
been exploited as fermentation media to produce various products/
metabolites such as antibiotic, bioinsecticide, solvents, polyhydroxyalkanoate, organic acids as well as enzymes to a certain
degree of success (Wu et al., 2009a). The recovery of substances

from POME as potential nutrient sources or food for sh (Phang,
1990; Phang and Ong, 1988; Yusoff et al., 1996), shrimp (Jawahar
Ali and Brendonck, 1995), goats (Agamuthu et al., 1996;
Vadiveloo, 1988) and chironomid larvae (Habib et al., 1997) have
also been reported. To a certain extent, POME could even be utilized
as fertilizer (Azizah Chulan, 1991; Chan et al., 1980; Teoh and Chew,
1983), although employing it as such would have to be carried out
with caution due to the imbalance in the nutrient composition of
POME (Onyia et al., 2001).
6. Conclusions
The palm oil industry is an indisputable source of pollution in
Malaysia. In order to counteract the negative impact of this source,
a pollution prevention strategy is denitely required. Among all the
treatment methods proposed, anaerobic digestion is an advantageous method for POME treatment as it generates valuable end
product that can be exchanged into revenue when registered as
a Clean Development Mechanism project. Furthermore, this
method is also able to treat efuent to a satisfactory quality for
discharge at lower costs (Poh and Chong, 2009). Although it seems
that end-of-pipe processes offer the simplest means for POME
management, such processes should only be chosen as the last
option in waste management as in general they are unable to
provide resource sustainability and, unfortunately, would impose
a so-called negative value on the waste. Also, POME may still
possess certain economic values and is not necessarily a waste,
depending on its quality and the accessibility of a market. In fact, it
has been demonstrated that POME could be sustainably reused
through promotion of a cleaner production as well as environmentally sound and cost-effective biotechnologies (Wu et al.,
2009a). POME management by means of a cleaner production,
a topic that is not covered in depth in this paper, is an emerging
approach for achieving an industrially sustainable development.
Certain propositions of integrated systems combine various environmentally sound biotechnologies for an enhanced POME
management instead of relying solely upon end-of-pipe processes.
Finally, it is suggested that the choice of POME management
through end-of-pipe processes would directly or indirectly depend
on the achievable degree of effectiveness of the treatment as well as
on other factors such as the size of the palm oil mill, the ultimate
mode of discharge, the economics of the establishment, operation
and maintenance facilities, the level of supervision required and the
anticipated economic benets combined with the supports from
the government.
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Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Management

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 603 89214529; fax: 603 8921 4660.

production of biodiesel (palm oil methylester or palm oil diesel) for

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

of reusing POME as an environmentally sustainable bioresource has

2. Process description and sources of water pollution

Ponding system has been employed by most of the palm oil

Limits according to periods of discharge

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Fresh fruit bunches

bottom phase since most of it is free or non-dissolved. The

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

All parameters are in units of mg/l except pH.

of carbohydrate constituents, both soluble and insoluble (Ho et al.,

the palm oil industries. Fig. 2 shows the commencement of a low

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

All parameters are in units of mg/l except pH.

Fig. 3. The centrifugal fractionation of POME (Wu et al., 2009a).

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Retention Temperature Organic

Oil and grease

Aerobic treatment with Yarrowia lipolytica

Aerobic treatment with Y. lipolytica 0.03 g/L

Activated sludge reactor

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen with time

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Retention Temperature Organic COD

Oil and grease

Chin and Wong

Two-phase anaerobic digesters

Completely mixed reactors

Completely mixed reactorsb

Tank digester with certain degree of mixing

Semi-commercial closed anaerobic digester

Upow anaerobic lter

Upow anaerobic lterc

Anaerobic uidized bed reactorc

Anaerobic uidized bed reactorc

Attached growth anaerobic processes

Upow anaerobic contact lterc

Upow anaerobic contact lter

Anaerobic sludge blanket processes

Borja and Banks

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Retention Temperature Organic COD

Oil and grease

Hybrid anaerobic treatment process

Upow anaerobic sludge xed lm reactorc

Optimized up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm

Optimized up-ow anaerobic sludge xed lm

increased liberation of cell components, such as oils, which were

The potential disadvantage of thermophilic digestion of POME

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

4.2.2. Attached growth anaerobic processes

results. These ndings indicated a sequential removal of substrate

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

key enzymes for methanogenesis and lack of sufcient trace metals

T.Y. Wu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1467e1490

Sedimentation and centrifugation

Oil and grease

3.56 57,000 z62