Effects of Different Dilutions in Palm Oil Mill Effluent Phytoremediation Using Water Spinach

The palm oil industry generates a significant amount of solid and liquid waste known as palm oil mill effluent (POME), which poses environmental risks to land and aquatic ecosystems. POME must be treated before being released into the environment to reduce the receiving water pollution. Phytoremediation, using aquatics plants like water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), offers a potential solution. This study investigated the phytoremediation efficiency of POME, focusing on parameters such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), and nitrate (NO3-N) levels. The experimental design with four treatments with different dilutions: control (0% POME), Treatment A (25% POME), Treatment B (50% POME), and Treatment C (75% POME). Treatment B demonstrated the highest COD removal efficiency with 91.64% removal and NO3-N reached 82.94% removal by Day 12. However, Treatment A showed the most substantial impact on TSS removal, and Treatment C had the highest TDS removal percentage. The growth performance of water spinach was evaluated in terms of plant height and biomass. Treatment C significantly influenced plant height, reaching approximately 15.23 cm on Day 12. Treatment C also resulted in the highest biomass production of 55.2 g. In conclusion, water spinach demonstrates the huge potential of phytoremediation for POME.