Recent Advances on Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) Pretreatment and Anaerobic Reactor for Sustainable Biogas Production

Palm oil is one of the leading agricultural crops in the world, as it dominates 34% of the global vegetable oil market, with approximately 64.6*103 million kgs of production in 2017. However, along with its breakthrough, the generation of palm oil mill effluent (POME) as uncontrolled waste has become a serious matter and requires proper management to reduce its negative effects on the environment. Subsequently, the high organic content of POME makes it possible to convert waste into value-added products, such as biogas. A ratio of 0.5 for biological oxygen demand to chemical oxygen demand (BOD/COD) indicates a high possibility for biological treatment. Recently, the utilisation of POME as a cheap source for biogas production has gained an extraordinary amount of attention, and intensive research has been conducted on the upstream to downstream process. Finding the most suitable and efficient pretreatment technique and reactor configuration are vital parameters for the treatment and conversion of POME to biogas. This review describes existing pretreatment processes for POME and recommends recently manufactured high-rate anaerobic reactors as the most suitable and efficient pretreatment technique for maximising the extraction of biogas from POME.