POME

Methane (CH4) emissions from palm oil wastewater, more commonly known as biogas released from palm oil mill effluent (POME), represents a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. POME releases biogas, which consists of 60–70 per cent methane and 30–40 per cent carbon dioxide (CO2) when it is treated in open ponds. Given the large palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, not to mention other agricultural activities in Southeast Asian countries, methane capture in the agroindustry has the largest potential for carbon capture in the region. This is especially important given that the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CH4 is 28 times that of CO2. This policy brief explores the methane mitigation potential through biogas capture and utilisation in Southeast Asia’s clean energy transition.

Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is a liquid waste from palm oil factory that pollutes the environment but is very useful as a raw material for producing biogas. POME processing has advantages to meet environmental requirements and to produce commercialized products. Although there are already enough biogas systems installed in oil palm factories, there are handful of players in this sector who can design and install an optimal working plant on palm oil mill effluent. The design involves many parameters and quite complicated process. Apart from POME the palm oil mills also generate solid cake from their decanters which is also known as decanter muck or decanter cake. There are no biogas plants observed which were working on this decanter muck. The purpose of this study is to obtain an understanding about the biogas system utilizing solid decanter cake in Southern part of India. Various dilution rates were studied to understand the best possible feedstock to water ratio in terms of gas generation and better stability of the digester. These concentrations also showed difference in CH4 concentration as well and ranged between 70-79%. Since it was seen that the internal process before the decanter varies with every batch as well as with every palm oil mill and so does the feedstock characteristics which is the inlet of the digester varies. It was found that when one kilogram of feedstock when fed to the lab scale digester it showed 0.075-0.12 m3 of raw biogas with different methane percentages and at different temperature levels. It was found that 38 Deg C was optimum and the study was carried out at various retention times and 20 days was found to be the best to digest decanter muck.

The purpose of this paper is to prove that waste palm oil industry (POME) can be used as raw material (source of energy) for biodiesel. In the production process, palm oil mill produced large amounts of waste. The provision of a shelter pond system is a temporary solution from palm oil mill to relocate the liquid waste. With BOD content with range 25,625 to 39,616.7 mg/l and COD content with range 117,333.3 to 146,333.3 mg/l, this condition will generate a serious problem for environmental pollution. Therefore, it is important to test the characteristics of waste oil from each pond. The hexane solvent extraction method is used to separate the oil from the liquid waste. The first pond contains 51.3% water, 21% oil, 2% sludge & sediment and 5.6% free fatty acids. The second pond contains 86.7% water, 16.1% oil, 2.4% sludge & sediment and 8% free fatty acids. The third pond contains 74% water, 6.8% oil, 3.1% sludge & sediment and 12.2% free fatty acid and the fourth pond contains 78.7%...