Investigation of Temperature Effect on Start-Up Operation from Anaerobic Digestion of Acidified Palm Oil Mill Effluent

Malaysia is one of the largest palm oil producers worldwide and its most abundant waste, palm oil mill effluent (POME), can be used as a feedstock to produce methane. Anaerobic digestion is ideal for treating POME in methane production due to its tolerance to high-strength chemical oxygen demand (COD). In this work, we compared the culture conditions during the start-up of anaerobic digestion of acidified POME between thermophilic (55 degrees C) and mesophilic (37 degrees C) temperatures. The pH of the digester was maintained throughout the experiment at 7.30 +/- 0.2 in a working volume of 1000 mL. This study revealed that the thermophilic temperature stabilized faster on the 44th day compared to the 52nd day for the mesophilic temperature. Furthermore, the thermophilic temperature indicated higher biogas production at 0.60 L-CH4/Ld compared to the mesophilic temperature at 0.26 L-CH4/Ld. Results from this study were consistent with the COD removal of thermophilic temperature which was also higher than the mesophilic temperature.