Dr. Wong Lai Peng
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia
Speech Title: Effect of ultrasound irradiation on palm oil mill effluent optimized by response surface methodology

Abstract: The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of ultrasound irradiation on palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. The experiment was statistically design by response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) to evaluate individual and interactive effects of operational independent variables including ultrasonication amplitude, ultrasonication time and total solids concentration. The treatment performance was assessed by three dependent variables, viz., particle size reduction, total suspended solid reduction and organic solubilisation improvement. Experimental results showed that ultrasonication irradiation has positive effect on POME treatment. The optimum operation condition suggested by RSM were ultrasonication amplitude of 50%, ultrasoncation time of 18.94 min and total solids concentration of 6.47% with expected organic disintegration results as 47.7% particle size reduction, 18.9% of solid reduction and 31.5% of solubilisation improvement.