Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

Drinking water reclamation from palm oil mill effluent (POME)

using membrane technology
A.L. Ahmad*, M.F. Chong, S. Bhatia, S. Ismail
School of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Seri Ampangan, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
Tel. +60 (4) 593-7788; Fax: +60 (4) 594-1013; email: chlatif@eng.usm.my
Received 15 March 2005; accepted 24 June 2005

Abstract
Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the largest pollutant discharged into the rivers of Malaysia. POME is a brownish
liquid waste and has high turbidity, color, chemical oxygen demand, oil and grease resulting from high organic matter
content and suspended solids. The removal of these pollutants is required in reclaiming the drinking water from POME.
Membrane technology (ultrafiltration and reverses osmosis) coupled with coagulation/flocculation as pretreatment was
used to reclaim drinking water from POME. The analyses of the reclaimed water shows that the water quality complied
with the drinking water standard set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The performance of the membranes
with coagulation/flocculation showed great potential to reclaim drinking water from POME with 78% water recovery.
The present studies with chemical cleaning show that membrane fouling was reversible and primarily due to cake
formation.
Keywords: Drinking water; Ultrafiltration; Reverse Osmosis; Water reclaiming

1. Introduction
Water shortages, deterioration of water quality, and environmental constraints have led to an
increased interest of recovering and recycling
water in many parts of the world. In many
*Corresponding author.

European countries, water is recovered by membrane filtration and is reused in agricultural

irrigation, greenhouse horticulture, cooling processes, and industry including food and beverage,
paper, poultry and textiles [1]. In Feb 2002, the
Singapore government started to reclaim water
from the sewage water for drinking and general
use instead of buying from other sources [2]. An

Presented at the International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM), Seoul, Korea,
2126 August 2005.
0011-9164/06/$ See front matter 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2005.06.033

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A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

independent poll by Forbes Research in October

2002 showed an overwhelming level of reclaimed
water acceptance among Singaporeans, with 82%
indicating that they were prepared to drink it
directly, while 16% were prepared to drink it indirectly through mixing with reservoir water.
Malaysia is the largest producer and exporter
of palm oil [3]. However, the large amount of
crude palm oil produced also resulted in large
amounts of palm oil mill effluent (POME) where
40.2 mil t of POME containing 38.2 mil t of
water was discharged in the year 2004. With this
statistics, the palm oil mill industry in Malaysia
was identified as the one that produces the largest
pollution load into the rivers throughout the
country [4].
POME is a colloidal suspension of 9596%
water, 0.60.7% oil and 45% total solids [3]. It
has high turbidity and color resulting from high
organic matter content and suspended solids. The
typical characteristic values of POME and the
drinking water standard set by US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) are given in
Table 1 [5]. The removal of organic matter is
required because [6]:
C colored water is unattractive/unacceptable to
the consumers
C results in coloring of clothes during washing
C can cause odour and taste
C causes high chemical oxygen demand (COD)
and biological oxygen semand (BOD)
C increases corrosion and biofilm growth in the
distribution network
C it is a precursor to the formation of disinfection by-products when water is disinfected.
POME also contains trace amount of minerals
and heavy metals [4]. The comparison made
between the qualities of POME with the drinking
water standard set by the USEPA in Table 1
shows that POME could not be used as drinking
water if it is not treated. Therefore, a proper
treatment method to remove the organic matter,

minerals and heavy metals is required in the

reclamation of drinking water from POME.
In recent years, membrane technologies such
as microfiltration, ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration and reverse osmosis (RO) have become a
more attractive for drinking water treatment
compared to conventional clarification. The main
advantages of membranes technology are [7]:
compact process and plant, separation based on
size exclusion, invariable quality of produced
water, constant production and water quality
independent of feed water quality, easy automation and absence of bacterial regrowth and
residual toxicity.
UF is a well known membrane technology
based on pore size that can retain macromolecules or high-molecular-mass compounds as
well as colloidal and suspended matters. UF also
excludes bacteria and viruses, which allows its
application for water disinfection, producing
drinkable water as the permeate of the process
[8]. However, UF passes metal ions, aqueous
salts, sugar and nonprotein nitrogen through the
membrane into the permeate [9].
RO utilizes a membrane that selectively
restricts the flow of solutes while permitting the
flow of solvent. RO membranes have pore
diameters less than 10 where the solvent is
forced through the membrane by pressure and the
undesired co-products frequently pass through the
membrane by diffusion [9]. Therefore, RO is
most important in areas where portable water
demand has outstripped natural supply because it
is able to reject all the solutes that UF fails to
achieve.
The major drawback of the membrane application technology is flux decline due to membrane fouling. Membrane technology combined
with pretreatment by coagulation and flocculation
to reduce and control fouling has been adopted by
many researchers [6]. The coagulation process
neutralizes or reduces the charge on the suspended particles. This allows the van der Waals

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

37

Table 1
POME characteristics of every stage of treatment and drinking water standards set by the USEPA
Parameter

POME

Pretreatment

Ultrafiltration

Reverse osmosis USEPA standard

pH
Color, color units
Odor, threshold odor number
Turbidity, NTU
COD, mg/L
Total dissolved solids, mg/L
Oil and grease, mg/L
Nitrogen (organic), mg/L
Ammonia nitrogen, mg/L
Al, mg/L
K, mg/L
Mg, mg/L
Ca, mg/L
Fe, mg/L
Mn, mg/L
Cu, mg/L
Zn, mg/L

4.7
151
300
11,000
50,000
20,500
4,000
750
35
3.9
2,270
615
439
46.5
2
0.89
2.3

6.63
128
150
34
15,000
8,850
80
748
37
0.52
1,169
589
421
13.53
1.24
0.11
0.08

6.63
54
70
0.65
12,400
6,640
ND
710
30
0.34
360
181
129
0.07
0.44
0.11
0.04

6.63
ND
ND
0.02
88
130
ND
0.50
0.50
ND
5.45
2.74
1.95
ND
ND
0.03
0.01

6.5-8.5
15
3
<0.5
NR
500
0.3
NR
NR
0.050.2
NR
150
NR
0.3
0.05
1.3
5

ND, not detectable; NR, not required.

force of attraction to encourage initial aggregation of colloidal and fine suspended materials
to form microflocs. Flocculation is the process of
bringing together microfloc particles to form
large agglomerates by physically mixing or
through the binding action of flocculants, such as
long chain polymers [10].
The objective of this study was to reclaim and
recover the drinking water from POME using
membrane technology (UF and RO) coupled with
chemical and physical (coagulation/flocculation)
treatments as pretreatment. A series of pilotplant-scale experiments was conducted using the
optimized operating parameters to collect the
reclaimed water. The quality of the reclaimed
water was checked to ensure the reclaimed water
met the drinking water standards set by the
USEPA.

2. Experimental
2.1. Pilot plant experimental set-up
POME samples used in this research were
obtained from the United Oil Palm Mill, Sungai
Kecil, Nibong Tebal, Malaysia. The membranebased pilot plant for POME treatment with a
500-L capacity, designed at the School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, was
used to perform the experiments. Raw POME
(70EC) was cooled to room temperature (25EC)
before being subjected to a series of treatments
which included coagulation/flocculation and
membrane separation (UF and RO) as shown in
Fig. 1. The optimum operating conditions shown
in Fig. 1 with 78% water recovery were first
determined by preliminary laboratory and pilot
plant tests, which are presented elsewhere [3].

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A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

Fig. 1. Flowchart of membrane-based pilot plant for POME treatment.

The raw POME was transferred to a chemical

tank where the coagulant, modified industrialgrade alum, Envifloc 40L, was added at a dosage
of 0.05 v/v. pH was adjusted to 5.56.5 by using
industrial-grade potassium hydroxide 65%
(NaOH). The mixing speed was set at 50 rpm for
60 min to allow the formation of microflocs. The
flocculant, (Envifloc 20S)/potable water-grade
cationic polymer (0.1%), was added to the mixture at a dosage of 0.015 v/v with a stirring speed
of 10 rpm for 30 min. The sludge was removed
from the supernatant (pretreated POME) by using
a filter press (not shown in Fig. 1).
The pretreated POME was pumped to the PCIMemtech B1 tubular module PVDF (ES625-type)
UF membrane unit. This module was fitted with
a membrane of nominal molecular weight cut-off
(MWCO) of 200,000 g/mole with 18 flow channels. The inner diameter of each tube was
12.7 mm and length was 1200 mm. The effective
area for filtration was 0.9 m2 and could be
operated up to maximum pressure of 6 bar. The
transmembrane pressure for UF was maintained
at 2 bar by adjusting the pressure control valves.
The feed flow rate and the flow velocity were set
at 0.8 m3/h and 0. 1m/s, respectively (Reynolds
number = 5000).
The permeate collected from the UF unit was
fed into the RO unit to produce permeate with
drinking water standards. This PCI-Memtech B1
tubular module TFC (AFC99-type) RO membrane with 99.9% NaCl retention and with a
0.9 m2 effective filtration area was operated up to
a maximum pressure of 60 bar. The transmembrane pressure for RO was maintained at 45 bar

by adjusting the pressure control valves. The feed

flow rate and the flow velocity were set at 1 m3/h
and 0.1 m/s, respectively (Reynolds number =
6155).
During the experiments, permeate flow rate of
each membrane unit was periodically measured.
The temperature was maintained at 25EC by
using water-cooled heat exchangers. The
permeate flux (Jv) was calculated using Eq. (1):
(1)
where Qp is the permeate flowrate (L/h) and A is
the effective filtration area (m2) of the membrane.
2.2. Membrane cleaning procedure
The UF and RO membranes were cleaned
after each experiment by using a chemical cleaning method. The UF membrane was circulated
with clean water to flush out POME. The membrane was circulated with 0.1% w/w of sodium
hydroxide for 30 min and then was soaked with
the same solution for 2 h to remove organic
matter that might be adsorbed on the PVDF membrane. The membrane was then rinsed with clean
water followed by circulating with 2% w/w nitric
acid for 30 min to remove any inorganic fouling.
The RO membrane was circulated with clean
water followed by circulating with weak nitric
acid solution (0.3% wt) for 30 min. Both membranes were flushed with clean water to remove
the remaining nitric acid by monitoring the flush
water pH value. A cleaned membrane should

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

have a flush water pH value of 6.57.5. Although

both membranes were cleaned at the circulation
flow rate of 0.5 m3/h with the pressure control
valve fully opened, permeate of cleaning agents
at low flux was observed. This shows that pore
cleaning was also carried out besides surface
cleaning. The temperature was maintained at
25EC by using water-cooled heat exchangers. The
efficiency of the cleaning procedure for both
types of membrane was checked by repeating
clean water flux tests and comparing results with
the initial clean water flux evaluation.
2.3. Analysis
The quality of the water after each stage of
treatment was analyzed to investigate the ability
of the pilot plant to reclaim water with drinking
water quality. The parameters analyzed were
physical (turbidity, color, odor, total dissolved
solids and pH) and chemical (COD, oil and
grease, total nitrogen, ammonial nitrogen, minerals and heavy metals). Other parameters such as
microorganisms, disinfection by-products, disinfectants, radionuclides and organic chemicals
were not analyzed due to the negligible amount in
POME as reported in the literature [5,11,12].
Turbidity was measured by WTW a turb
350IR turbidity meter, pH was measured using a
Mettler Toledo 320 pH meter, the color was
determined by spectrophotometry at a wavelength
of 410 nm with the Cecil 1000 series spectrophotometer (Cambridge, UK) in a 10-mm adsorption cell; odor was determined by using the
threshold odor test where the sample was diluted
with odor-free water until the least definitely perceptible odor was achieved. Total dissolved
solids were measured by evaporating the filtrate
of the sample to dryness in a weighed dish and
dried to constant weight at 180EC. The increase
in the dish weight represented the total dissolved
solids.
COD was measured by using the colorimetric
method at a wavelength of 600 nm with the

39

CECIL 1000 series spectrophotometer (Cambridge, UK). Oil and grease were measured using
the Soxhlet extraction method, total organic
nitrogen was measured by the MacroKjeldahl
method and the ammonia nitrogen was measured
using a preliminary distillation step followed by
the titrimetric method with standard sulfuric acid
titrant, 0.02 N. Minerals and heavy metals were
measured by using the atomic absorption spectrometric method with a direct airacetylene
flame and the inductively coupled plasma
method. The details of all the analytical methods
followed were based on procedures given in the
APHA, Standard Method for the Examination of
Water and Wastewater [13].
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Permeate quality
The visual observations of the process from
Fig. 2 show that the quality of the water improved
from each stage of treatment in terms of color,
odor and turbidity. At the final stage of treatment,
RO produced odor-free, clear water. The chemical analyses of the permeate water in Table 1
show that USEPA drinking water quality standards were met. The treatment of POME in the
present studies gave more than 99% removal of
COD, total dissolved solids, nitrogen (organic),
and almost 99% removal of ammonia nitrogen.
The proposed treatment method completely
removed the color, odor, turbidity, and oil and
grease with a final pH of 6.63. The minerals and
heavy metals analysis according to Table 1 shows
a great reduction in their concentrations and well
below the maximum contaminant level (MCL) set
by the USEPA for drinking water standard. The
analysis of the reclaimed water quality shows that
the reclaimed water met most of the specifications with USEPA drinking water quality
standards [14]. The COD reading (88 mg/L) of
the reclaimed water was due to the presence of
trace amounts of dissolved organic matter from

40

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 2. Quality of water after each stage of treatment using pilot-plant-scale analysis. (a) Raw POME. (b) Supernatant after
chemical physical pretreatment. (c) Permeate of ultrafiltration. (d) Permeate of reverse osmosis (drinking water).

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3. Permeate flux for 24 h filtration and its recovery by chemical cleaning. (a) Ultrafiltration: transmembrane pressure,
2 bar; feed flow rate, 0.8 m3/h; flow velocity, 0.1 m/s; temperature, 25EC. (b) Reverse osmosis: transmembrane pressure,
45 bar; feed flow rate, 1 m3/h; flow velocity, 0.1 m/s; temperature, 25EC.

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

(a)

41

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Fig. 4. Ultrafiltration membrane. SEM images of the cross sectional view: (a) new membrane, (c) fouled membrane, (e)
cleaned membrane (200 magnification); and surface view: (b) new membrane, (d) fouled membrane, (f) cleaned (10 k
magnification).

42

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Fig. 5. RO membrane. SEM images of the cross sectional view: (a) new membrane, (c) fouled membrane, (e) cleaned
membrane (500 magnification); and surface view: (b) new membrane, (d) fouled membrane, (f) cleaned membrane (10k
magnification.

A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

palm oil fruits which are nontoxic. Since the

USEPA drinking water standard does not specify
the COD value, it is difficult to make a comparison based on the COD. However, further analysis
of the organic composition of the reclaimed water
(responsible for COD value) should be done to
ensure the quality of the reclaimed water.

43

show an absence of pore blockage after chemical

cleaning of the membranes. Figs. 4b and 5b show
the surface view of the new membrane for UF
and RO, respectively. Cake formation was observed after the filtration process (Figs. 4d and
5d). Figs. 4f and 5f show that the cake layer was
removed after chemical cleaning of the
membranes.

3.2. Membrane performance

Fig. 3(a) and (b) show the permeate flux
behavior for UF and RO, respectively. The optimum operating conditions used in the filtration
are based on repeated experimental studies reported in previous work [3] at shorter filtration
times (12 h). Both Fig. 3(a) and (b) show a
similar trend where the permeate flux decreased
from the initial flux value within seconds until the
next chemical cleaning to restore the initial
performance of the membranes. The rates of permeate flux decline were different for both UF and
RO. The UF membrane flux decreased to about
50% of the initial flux after 6 h. In contrast, the
RO membrane flux decreased to about 50% of the
initial flux after 23 h. This phenomenon indicates
that UF is more prone to fouling due to the
increase of membrane resistance resulting from
cake formation.
Chemical cleaning after 24 h of operation
increased the permeate flux effectively to the
initial level for both UF and RO membranes. The
deposit on the membrane surface was removed,
and the flux after cleaning was 90.83% and
88.39% of the initial flux value for the UF and
RO, respectively. This indicated that the fouling
was primarily cake formation without pore blockage of the membrane itself. This phenomenon
was observed in the SEM images of the cross
sectional and surface view for UF and RO shown
in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. Figs. 4a and 5a
show the cross sectional view of the new membrane used for UF and RO, respectively. Both
membranes after usage did not show any pore
blockage (Figs. 4c and 5c). Figs. 4e and 5e also

4. Conclusions
The present studies indicate that UF and RO
membrane technology coupled with coagulation/
flocculation as pretreatment successfully reclaimed drinking water from POME with 78%
water recovery. The chemical analyses proved
that the quality of the reclaimed water from
POME complied with drinking water standards
set by the USEPA. The membrane technology
significantly reduced the values of all parameters
(color, odor, turbidity, total dissolved solids, oil
and grease, minerals and heavy metal) to the
values well below the MCL set by the USEPA.
The performance of the membranes with
coagulation/flocculation showed a great potential
for reclaiming drinking water from POME. The
present studies with chemical cleaning show that
membrane fouling, primarily due to cake formation, was reversible. This cake layer could be
easily removed when the membranes were
cleaned with chemicals, and membrane performance was restored to its initial state.
The membrane technology used in the present
studies gave a very positive outcome of being a
method to reclaim drinking water from POME.
Therefore, for future studies, the overall capacity
and performance of the system combined with
cost analysis should be done to study if the option
is viable on a commercial scale.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the Federal Land Development Authority

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A.L. Ahmad et al. / Desalination 191 (2006) 3544

Foundation (Yayasan Felda) of Malaysia for their

financial support.
[8]

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