Removal of Residual oil in palm oil mill effluent (Pome) by using mixture of non-ionon and anionic surfactant

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is oily waste water produced from palm oil extraction process. Discharging POME to the river will deplete the amount of dissolved oxygen in the river and endanger the aquatic life. Therefore, the residual oil and grease in POME must be removed before being discharged to the river. In this study, the residual oil was removed by using the mixture of anionic (GE-460) and non-ionic (Brij-30) surfactants. n-hexane is used as solvent in oil extraction process for comparison. Five experimental parameters were studied to obtain the optimum oil and grease removal in POME. Parameters studied were concentration of surfactant, ratio of the mixture of surfactant, mixing time, mixing speed, mixing time and pH value. The results showed that the optimum conditions for the removal of residual oil in POME are 0.0004 M of GE-460 and 0.00001 M Brij, mixture of surfactants with ratio of 1:1, mixing time of 30 minutes at 180 rpm mixing speed and pH 5. The average value for the extracted oil under the optimum condition was 1250 mg/L. For qualitative analysis of oil and grease, the bonding in extracted oil and grease can be analysed by using infrared spectrophotometry (FTIR). The FTIR graph detected a bonding at 2930 cm-1 that showed the presence of CH2, a common characteristic of oil and non polar part of surfactant. Bond at 3400 cm- 1 showed the presence of O-H, C-O at 1163-1099 cm-1 and 1637 cm-1 for carbonyl group