Performance of polyglutamic acid in palm oil mill effluent treatment

Abstract

Up until today, palm oil mill effluent (POME) considered one of the significant sources of environmental pollution. The characteristics of POME include high acidity, temperature, and chemical oxygen demand (COD), which not only contaminate the source of drinking water but also harmful to the aquatic ecosystem by creating a highly acidic environment or causing eutrophication. With increasing public awareness of environmental pollution, this creates the need to address this issue. This study addresses this issue by performing a study on the pollutant removal performance of polyglutamic acid (PGA) in palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. PGA is a non-polluting food-based water-soluble anionic and biodegradable biopolymer that are more environmentally friendly in wastewater treatment. The critical parameter to determine the effectiveness of pollutants removal are COD, color, and total suspended solids (TSS). In this aspect, a series of experiments conducted to determine the optimum working conditions of PGA in POME treatment. It found that the optimum pH and dosage of PGA in POME for COD, color, and TSS removal are at pH 3 and 800 ppm. Findings revealed with this condition; the COD removal was up to 45.16%, color removal up to 77.6%, and 100% TSS removal. Results also showed that PGA is dosage-dependent, which works well in POME under room temperature, and no pH modification is needed. The findings indicated that PGA is significant in POME treatment to contribute to achieving environmental sustainability. For future studies, PGA could be paired with other wastewater treatment methods to achieve higher pollutant removal performance.