Thermophilic Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) treatment using a mixed culture cultivated from POME

The application of high-rate anaerobic bioreactors to replace conventional treatment methods for POME treatment has soared as these high-rate anaerobic bioreactors had smaller foot prints, producing better treated effluent quality and greater biogas volume with higher purity of methane, which can be utilized for energy generation purposes. A mixed culture specifically for thermophilic anaerobic treatment of POME was cultivated from a mesophilic seed sludge. The performance of the cultivated mixed culture on the treatment of POME was studied. The cultivated thermophilic mixed culture managed to reduce ≥ 90% of COD in POME with after 6 days of operation from POME treatment with a MLSS concentration of 14,000 mg/L producing biogas with 66% methane. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).