Production of polyhydroxybutyrate during the treatment of palm oil mill effluent

• Main Author: Mat Rani, Zulkafli
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/50735/25/ZulkafliMatRaniMFChE2014.pdf; http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/50735/; http://dms.library.utm.my:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:86427

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is one of the most problematic waste, generated through out the year from the palm oil mill industry. The excessive production of this effluent without proper control results in serious environmental problems. However POME can be a cheap carbon source to produce bioplastic, like polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) or polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) in the activated POME treatment system. In this study the sludge in anaerobic pond A1, anaerobic pond A2 and facultative pond F1 in the treatment plant at PPNJ, Kahang palm oil mill, were used as substrates to produce maximum amount of PHB. By using a 10 liters of laboratory reactor, the existing bacteria propagated in growth phase and the optimum formation of PHB in the bacterial cell was studied during accumulation phase under feast and famine process. The range of volatile fatty acid (VFA) was 11.43 mg/l to 577.22 mg/L for the scope of this study. Analytical measurement and PHB quantification were conducted by using gas chromatography. The highest production of PHB was found at anaerobic pond A1 (0.281 mt per day process and 0.0003 mt/mt fresh fruit bunch), at concentration of 0.11 g/L.