Phycoremediation of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) by Freshwater Microalgae

Palm Oil Mill Effluent is an untreated wastewater that is generated from palm oil industry containing soluble materials that are harmful to the environment. Malaysia is currently faced with water pollution issues due to direct discharge of this effluent into the watercourse. Therefore, phytoremediation of palm oil mill effluent with microalgae is adequately needed to provide a biofriendly mean of treating the effluent before discharge out. The objective of this study is to analyze the performance of Chlorella sorokiniana for pollutant removal. This study was undertaken to assess the potential of utilizing Chlorella sorokiniana for remediation of high strength wastewater at different dilutions of 80, 60, 40, and 20% v/v with distilled water. The remediating ability of the microalgae was measured under two condition of sterilized and non-sterilized POME; hence 80% v/v dilution was considered as the best condition. Growth of C. sorokiniana in 80% dilution of POME presents the highest specific growth rate of about 0.1408 d(-1) at 15 days cultivation period. The results indicated that C. sorokiniana grew well in both sterile and non-sterile POME resulting in efficient removal of nitrate, phosphate, color and COD by 31-71%, 29-64%, 31-86% and 11-91% respectively. This study showed that cultivation of C. sorokiniana in both sterilized and non-sterilized POME can be a possible solution for treatment of POME discharge into environment.