Abstract:
Fresh palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a hot, bad odor, acidic (pH between 4 to 5),
which contains high amounts of organic matter, total solids, and high concentrations of
BOD and COD. Direct discharge of POME into waterways can cause serious an
environmental problems since it is highly polluted, resulting the reduction of dissolved
oxygen content, and the death of aquatic life. The majority of POME treatment
involves the use of ponding system or land application. The ponding system with
anaerobic methode is cost-effective, easy and the most acceptable method in the
industrial scale, but requires large ponding areas and time-consuming (100-120 days) in
order to fulfill the threshold set by the government regulation, thus it is important to
find an alternative solution to avoid the unpleasant and overflow problem of POME
during rainy season. Photocatalysis-based advanced oxidation process is considered
environmentally-friendly, well-established method applied for the degradation of most
organic contaminants. The purpose in this study is to synthesized photocatalyst
composite α-MnO2/bentonite for the degradation of POME. The photocatalyst
composite α-MnO2/bentonite was synthesized using a facile, one-pot sol gel method and
characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) for its phase structures. The XRD results
indicated the presence of tunnel cryptomelane-type manganese oxide (α-MnO2) in the
composite. The catalytic tests revealed that in the optimum condition, the COD
maximum reduction of POME was 89,58% achieved using 400 mg/L of photocatalyst
composite α-MnO2/bentonite with diluted POME (10/90 by volume v/v) for 120
minutes of degradation time
