The Effect of Express Microorganisms (EM4) on Chemical

Compounds in Liquid Wastes of Oil Palm

Muhammad Nasri

, Rosliana Lubis

, Sartini Sartini

and Kiki Nurtjahja

Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Medan Area, Medan, Indonesia

Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Chemical compounds, EM4, Palm oil, Mill effluent

Abstract: High content of chemical compounds of palm oil mill effluent is potential as source of organic fertilizer that

beneficial for plant growth. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of express microorganims-4

(EM-4) in reducing the chemical characteristics such as nitrogen (N), phososphorus (P), potassium (K) and

chemical oxygen demand (COD) of palm oil mill effuent. The effluent was obtained from end process of

crude palm oil (CPO) at oil palm plant at North Sumatera. Several concentrations of EM-4 (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9

mL) were mixed in 200 mL graduate cylider to the effluent 99, 97. 95, 93 and 91 mL respectively. All

suspension were mixed homogenously and were incubated anaerobically at 29°C for 5, 10 and 15 days. All

treatments were repicates 3 times. Results showed that express microorganisms-4 is effective in reducing

chemical charcteristics of the palm oil miil effluent such as nitrogen, phosporus, potassium and chemical

oxygen demand. In general, the highest EM-4 concentration is follwed by the lowest of the chemical

characteristics.

1 INTRODUCTION

Oil palm (Elaeis quineensis Jacq.) is one of the most

export commodity in Indonesia. During the

processing of the fresh fruit bunch to become crude

palm oil (CPO), high quantity of the by products,

solid and liquid wastes were produced. Non-

processed of the effluent has negative effects on

environment (Singh and Pandey 2009; Wu et al.

2010).

Therefore, treatment of palm oil mill effluent

were required to decompose from complex

compounds into derivative products such as methane

for fuel and simple macro and micro nutrients that

can be used as liquid fertilizer for plants growth.

There are many indigenous microorganisms

presence in palm oil mill effluent such as

Micrococcus luteus, Stenotrophomona maltophilia,

Bacilus cereus, Klebsiella (Bala et al. 2018),

Soleimaninanadegani and and Manshad (2014) used

local microorganisms in degrading palm oil mill

effluent and indigenous microorganisms in the

effluent are more effective than introduce

microorganism.

Aerobic and anaerobic microorganims have

important role in accelerate decomposition process.

In nature, the activity of microorganisms in

decomposing liquid waste reduce chemical oxygen

demand (COD) (Nwuche et al. 2014). Effective

microorganisms (EM) is liquid substance that

contain mixed cultures (microbial consortium) of

fermentative living microorganisms (bacteria, mold

and yeast that advantage and work synergically in

degrading organic compounds (Britton 1984).. The

purpose of the recent study was to investigate the

effect of fermentation of palm oil mill effluent by

EM-4 on the amount of macronutriens (nitrogen,

phosphorus, potassium and chemical oxygen

demand.

2 MATERIALS AND METHOD

2.1 Preparation of Palm Oil Mill

Effluent

The research was conducted on Research Center of

oil Palm and Microbiology and Biotechnology

Laboratory, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural

Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara. The effluent

of oil palm was obtained from processing end of oil

Nasri, M., Lubis, R., Sartini, . and Nurtjahja, K.

The Effect of Express Microorganims-4 (EM-4) on Chemical Compounds Liquid Wastes of Oil Palm.

DOI: 10.5220/0010613600002775

In Proceedings of the 1st International MIPAnet Conference on Science and Mathematics (IMC-SciMath 2019), pages 571-573

ISBN: 978-989-758-556-2

571

palm plant at PTPN IV Adolina, Perbaungan, North

Sumatera. As much as 2 L of the liqud waste was

suspended and the supernatant in 200 mL graduate

cylinder was mixed with effective microorganisms

(EM-4) as follows: 1 mL EM+99 mL; 3 mL EM+97

mL; 5 mL EM+ 95 mL; 7 mL EM+93 mL; 9 mL

EM+91 mL and 100 mL supernatant with no EM

used as control. All treatments were mixed

homogenously and incubated anaerobically at 29°C

for 5, 10 and 15 days. Three replications were made

for each treatment.

2.2 Determination of N, P, K, and

COD

Analysis of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium

(K) and chemical oxygen demand (COD was

conducted before and after treatment by EM-4. The

percentage of nitrogen compound was observed by

Kjehdal method. Whereas, phosphorus (%),

potassium (%) and chemical oxygen demand (mg/L)

were observed according to the procedure Standard

Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater,

American Public Health Association (APHA)

(1998).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 pH and

Concentration of N, P, K,

and COD in Liquid Waste of Oil

Palm

The initial pH of palm oil mill effluent observed was

4.10 and concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus,

potassium an COD of liquid waste oil palm before

fermented by EM-4 was shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Chemical characteristics of palm oil mill effluent

before treated by EM-4

Sample

number

Chemical characteristics of effluent

N (%) P (%) K (%) COD

1 3.53. 7.32. 6.50 305.12

2 5.04 5.90 5.31 270.80

3 3.89 6.04 8.91 336.41

Among nitrogen and potassium, phosporus was

the highest component in the effluent, however, all

chemical characteristics still above standar. The

concentration of nitrogen in palm oil mill effluent

after fermented by EM-4 reduce in compare to

control tretments (Table 2).

Table 2: The effect of EM-4 concentration on nitrogen

componds n liquid waste of oil palm

EM-4

concentration

(%)

days / nitrogen concentration

(%)

510 15

0 (control) 5.42 6.76 6.37

1 1.26 2.23 0.48

3 1.26 1.16 0.35

5 0.18 3.08 0.29

7 0.25 4.09 0.85

9 0.62 5.39 1.09

In general, EM-4 affect on reducing nitrogen,

phosphorus, potassium content and COD. The

consortium of microorganism in EM-4 indicate the

microorganisms work synergically by releasing

hydrolytic enzymes in degrading organic molecules

(Britton 1984; Boopathy 2000). The highest

reducing nitrogen ocurred at EM-4 5% after 5 days

of incubation, however, the N concentration

increased sharply at 9% EM-4 concentration after 10

to 15 days of incubation. We assumed that the

consortium of microorganisms in EM-4 begin to

grow and degraded protein compounds.

The effect of EM-4 activity on phosphorus in the

effluent showed the increasing of EM-4 and length

of fermentation was followed by the reducing of

phosphorus (Table 3). Similar to nitrogen, the

presence of EM-4 reduce phosphorus content

drastically. The lowest P occurred on 9% EM-4

particularly after 15 days of incubation.

Table 3: The effect of EM-4 concentration on phosphorus

componds in palm oil mill effluent

EM-4

concentration

(%)

days /phosphorus concentration

(%)

510 15

0 (control) 7.39 7.08 7.39

1 1.26 2.47 0.24

3 0.67 0.55 5.45

5 0.60 1.30 4.35

7 0.79 0.54 1.07

9 0.62 0.27 0.21

As shown in Table 1 and Table 3, phosphorus

was the highest compund in the effluent, it might

EM-4 reduce the compound during fermentation.

Similat to the concentration of nitrogen and

phosphorus, the effect of EM-4 also reduce

potassium (Table 4).

IMC-SciMath 2019 - The International MIPAnet Conference on Science and Mathematics (IMC-SciMath)

572

Table 4: The effect of EM-4 concentration on potassium

compounds in palm oil mill effluent

EM-4

concentration

(%)

days / phosphorus concentration

(%)

5 10 15

0 (control) 7.31 7.51 7.38

1 5.61 14.09 4.88

3 4.47 12.54 4.37

5 3.91 11.3 3.99

7 2.49 11.6 4.53

9 1.64 1.69 4.06

In compare to control treatments, the potassium

was was drastically reduced by the presence of EM-

4. The higher EM-4 concentration is followed by

lower potassium. The presence of microorganisms in

EM-4 in the effluent reduce chemical oxygen

demand (COD) (Table 5).

Table 5: The effect of EM-4 concentration on chemical

oxygen demand (COD) in palm oil mill effluent

EM-4

concentration

(%)

days / chemical oxygen demand

(COD) (ppm)

5 10 15

0 (control) 364.46 384.95 385.08

1 205.61 111.35 164.90

3 193.51 122.99 141.63

5 168.94 136.42 104.69

7 89.30 140.37 123.37

9 102.04 128.22 147.13

In general, the effect of EM-4 reduced COD and

the final pH was 4.82 (no shown in table). It can be

seen that EM-4 at concentration 7 and 9% lowering

COD after 5 to 15 days of incubation, which was

similar to the results reported by Poh and Chong

(2009), might due to the organic substances were

decompose by microorganism to obtain simple

molecules for their grow. Fungi and bacteria that

high hydrolytic enzymes is potential in degrading

cellulose and lipid content in the effluent (Sethi et al.

2013).

4 CONCLUSION

The presence of express microorganisms (EM-4)

during anaerobic is potential in reducing chemical

composition and chemical oxygen demand of palm

oil mill effluent.

REFERENCES

Bala, J.D., Lalung J., Al-Gheethi A.S., Hosain K., Ismail

N. 2018. Microbiota of palm oil mill waste water in

Malaysia. Tropical Life Sciences Research29(2): 131-

163.

Boopathy, R. 2000. Factor limiting bioremedition

technologies. Bioresource Technology 74(1): 63-67.

Britton, L.N. 1984. Microbial degradation of aliphatic

hydrocarbon. In Microbial Degradation of Organic

Compounds. D.T. Gibson. Ed. Pp.89-129, Marcel

Dekker, New York, NY, USA.

Nwuche, C.O., Aoyagi H., Ogbonna J.C. 2014. Treatment

of palm oil effluent by a microbial consortium

developed from compost soils. Hindawi Publishing

Corporation. International Scholarly Research Notices,

vol 2014. Article ID 762070.

Poh, P.E., Chong M.F. 2009. Development of anaerobic

digestion methods for palm oil effluent (POME)

treatment. Bioresource Technology 100(1): 1-9.

Sethi, S., Datta A. Gupta L., Gupta S. 2013. Optimization

of cellulase production from bacteria isolated from

soil. ISRN Biotechnology, vol. 2013. Article ID

985685.

Singh, P.N, PandeyA. 2009. Biotechnology for Agro-

Industrial-Residues-Utilisation. Vol. 1. Springer

Science+BusinessMedia B.V. New York, NY. USA.

Soleimaninanadegani, M., Manshad S. 2014.

Enhancement of biodegradation of palm oil mill

effluentsby local isolated microorganims. Hindawi

Publishing Corporation. International Scholarly

Research Notices, vol 2014. Article ID 727049.

Wu, T.Y., Muhammad A.W., Jahim J.M., Anuar N. 2010.

Pollution control technologies for the treatment of

palm oil mill effluent (POME) through end-of-pipe

processes. Journal of Environmental Management

91(7): 1467-1490.

The Effect of Express Microorganims-4 (EM-4) on Chemical Compounds Liquid Wastes of Oil Palm

573