POME Sludge Pellet

Processing palm oil mill effluent (POME) is one of the mandatory requirements for palm oil mills. This requirement becomes a criterion whether the palm oil mill in question has a good environmental concern, especially its waste processing sector. The liquid waste of oil palm mills is one of the large quantities of palm oil mill waste. Almost all palm oil mills always have wastewater treatment ponds. Every ton of FFB (Fresh Fruit Bunch) produces 700 liters (0.7 m3) of liquid waste so that if the plant has a capacity of 60 tons / hour FFB and operates 20 hours per day, the volume of liquid waste produced reaches 42,000 liters / hour (42 m3 / hour) or 800,000 liters / day (800 m3 / day). The method of processing wastewater can be like the diagram below.

Biosolid in the form of accumulated sludge can be processed further for biogas production, with by-products in the form of treated sludge, which is usually an organic fertilizer, can also be directly used as fuel. Instead of just being thrown away, the biosolid can be biomass densified into pellets. By becoming a pellet besides facilitating handling, storage, transportation and utilization. The pellet production process from POME sludge is also almost the same as the production of wood pellets. The production of POME sludge pellets is also a solution to overcome organic waste effectively and cheaper than processed further into biogas. Biogas production from POME with both the covered lagoon and CSTR (stirred tank continuous reactor) still requires expensive investment, so there are still very few oil mills in Indonesia that do it. And if the POME sludge is left alone in the waste pond so that there is aerobic fermentation it will produce methane gas which damages the ozone layer in the atmosphere.

If every month from a palm oil mill is produced 2,000 tons of POME sludge and an area such as Riau which has around 300 palm oil mills, then the potential of POME sludge reaches 600,000 tons and this is equivalent to 300,000 tons of POME sludge pellet. Whereas if calculated nationally with the number of oil mills reaching 1,000 units, the potential of POME sludge will reach 2,000,000 tons or equivalent to 1,000,000 tons of POME sludge pellet. Interestingly, POME sludge pellets also have a fairly high calorific value, which is about 4000 kcal / kg. This can happen because POME sludge still contains palm oil. With such a high calorie content, the POME sludge pellets are attractive. Besides being able to be used by various industries as fuel, the selling price of POME sludge should also be quite attractive because of its high energy content. The hope is POME sludge pellet will become a new and renewable energy amount that is very abundant in Indonesia. And if it is used as industrial fuel which means substituting fossil fuels, then it also reduces the use of fossil fuels, is environmentally friendly and carbon neutral.