Natural Coagulant Research Paper

2.6.2 Natural Coagulant

Natural coagulants has been given a great attention in terms of improvement and implementation in wastewater treatment. According to Saharudin and Nithyanandam (2014), natural coagulant is a natural-based coagulant that is used in coagulation process in order to reduce turbidity of water in wastewater treatment. These natural coagulants can be derived from animal, plant, microorganisms, fungi and inorganic materials such as clay. Natural coagulants are favourable compared to chemical coagulants due to its advantages as it do not contain acrylamide monomers which can lead to health danger plus the cost of these coagulants also would be less expensive since it is locally available (Asrafuzzaman, Fakhrudin & Hossain, 2011).

There are two countries that produce the largest oil palm which are Indonesia and Malaysia (Rupani et al., 2010). The study of Ohimain, Izah & Jenakumo (2013) stated that the oil palm plant begins proving to be fruitful at 3 to 5 years and achieving ideal yield at 10 years from planting. Oil palm has a monetary life estimation of 20 – 30 a long time and life expectancy of around 200 years.

In the first step of palm oil processes, the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) is gathered from the plant and transported to the mill. During oil extraction from FFB, there are three squanders streams are developed; solid, fluid and gaseous waste (Rupani et al., 2010). The examples of waste that are generated from the oil palm processes are oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF), palm oil mill effluent (POME), empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm press fibre (PPF), shell palm oil mill sludge (POMS), and palm kernel cake (PKC) (Singh, Hakimi & Esa, 2010). However, according to Ohimain, Izah & Jenakumo (2013), palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been identified as the most costly and difficult waste to

(2006) pointed out the likelihood of recuperating and concentrating the accessible bio-assets in POME by an ultrafiltration process in order to reuse it more successfully as fermentation media, composts and animal feeds. Besides, POME also can maximize the yield of biogas production once it is been well converted to energy through an anaerobic thermophilic digestion. They added, the procedure captures the methane from POME to run a gas motor to produce power or on the other hand to turn the biogas in a boiler to create steam and hot water. Despite of all new strategies and advances have been created, palm oil factories are still struggling to meet up the limits of effluent discharge allowed by Department of Environment (DOE)