Abstract:
Palm oil mills produce two types of waste in producing Crude Palm Oil (CPO), namely
solid waste and liquid waste. Solid waste in the form of empty fruit bunches, shells and
palm fiber which can be used as boiler fuel. Boiler fuel will produce ash called Palm Oil
Mill Fly Ash (POMFA). POMFA has characteristics similar to activated carbon so that it
can be used as an adsorbent for wastewater treatment. Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is
considered as a hazardous compound and must be treated prior to be released into water
bodies. In this study, the POME was treated with two types processes, (1) adsorption with
palm oil mill fly ash activated with NaOH solution, (2) degradation with heterogeneous
Fenton reaction using manganese oxide. The activated adsorbent was characterized by XRay
Fluorescence (XRF) to determine the chemical composition of fly ash. Adsorption
processes was able to reduce COD concentration about 45,45% obtained with the mass
of adsorbent of 25 mg, POME volume of 100 mL for 45 minutes of reaction time. The
degradation of POME was conducted using Co-cryptomelane catalyst via activation of
hydrogen peroxide. The degradation of POME was achieved with the H2O2 concentration
of 17.000 mg/L and POME volume 20 mL in 60 minutes with decreasing efficiency of
55,07% using 5% Co-cryptomelane synthesized using glucose as precursor.
