The Malaysian palm oil industry is a major revenue earner and the country is ranked as one of the largest producers in the world. However, growth of the industry is synonymous with a massive production of agro-industrial wastewater. As an environmental protection and public health concern, the highly polluting palm oil mill effluent (POME) has become a major attention-grabber. Hence, the industry is targeting for POME pollution abatement in order to promote a greener image of palm oil and to achieve sustainability. At present, most palm oil mills have adopted the ponding system for treatment. Due to the successful POME pollution abatement experiences, Malaysia is currently planning to revise the effluent quality standards towards a more stringent discharge limits. Hence, the current trend of POME research focuses on developing tertiary treatment or polishing systems for better effluent management. Biotechnologically-advanced POME tertiary (polishing) technologies as well as other physicochemical methods are gaining much attention as these processes are the key players to push the industry towards the goal of environmental sustainability. There are still ongoing treatment technologies being researched and the outcomes maybe available in a while. However, the research completed so far are compiled herein and reported for the first time to acquire a better perspective and insight on the subject with a view of meeting the new standards. To this end, the most feasible technology could be the combination of advanced biological processes (bioreactor systems) with extended aeration, followed by solids separation prior to discharge. Chemical dosing is favoured only if effluent of higher quality is anticipated.

In Malaysia, terraced housing hardly provides thermal comfort to the occupants. More often than not, mechanical cooling, which is an energy consuming component, contributes to outdoor heat dissipation that leads to an urban heat island effect. Alternatively, encouraging natural ventilation can eliminate heat from the indoor environment. Unfortunately, with static outdoor air conditioning and lack of windows in terraced houses, the conventional ventilation technique does not work well, even for houses with an air well. Hence, this research investigated ways to maximize natural ventilation in terraced housing by exploring the air well configurations. By adopting an existing single storey terraced house with an air well, located in Kuching, Sarawak, the existing indoor environmental conditions and thermal performance were investigated and monitored using scientific equipment, namely HOBO U12 air temperature and air humidity, the HOBO U12 anemometer and the Delta Ohm HD32.3 Wet Bulb Globe Temperature meter. For this parametric study, the DesignBuilder software was utilized. The field study illustrated that there is a need to improve indoor thermal comfort. Thus, the study further proposes improvement strategies to the existing case study house. The proposition was to turn the existing air well into a solar chimney taking into account advantages of constant and available solar radiation for stack ventilation. The results suggest that the enhanced air well was able to improve the indoor room air velocity and reduce air temperature. The enhanced air well with 3.5 m height, 1.0 m air gap width, 2.0 m length was able to induce higher air velocity. During the highest air temperature hour, the indoor air velocity in existing test room increased from 0.02 m/s in the existing condition to 0.29 m/s in the hottest day with 2.06 °C air temperature reduction. The findings revealed that the proposed air well could enhance the thermal and ventilation performance under the Malaysia tropical climate.

Over the decades the palm oil industry has managed some challenging environmental concerns regarding land transformation and degradation, increase in eutrophication, changing habitats of wildlife, pesticides runoff into inland watercourses, and probable climate change. Countries producing palm oil desire to do so in a more sustainable way that will leave the environment evergreen. Therefore this paper aims to encourage sustainable management of agro-industrial waste and its potential in making financial returns from the same waste. Hence, the study was conducted with the participation of seven local palm oil mills having different capacities and operation age. Attention was given to milling waste as they could cause serious environmental menace if unattended to properly. Milling waste includes lignocellulosic palm biomass namely the empty fruit bunches (EFB), oil palm shell (OPS), mesocarp fibres, palm oil mill effluent (POME), and palm oil mill sludge (POMS), as well as solid waste generated from the further processing of these biomass into the palm oil fuel ashes (POFA) and palm oil clinkers (POC). The opportunities available to the Malaysian palm oil industry and the financial benefits which may accrue from waste generated during palm oil production process cannot be over emphasized.

This paper presents the effect of different sizes of palm kernel shell (PKS) activated carbon as the carrier material in a micro-bioreactor system to treat the palm oil mill effluent (POME). Three different sizes of PKS activated carbon were used as the carrier material, i.e. 4.750 – 2.360 mm (large), 1.180 – 0.710 mm (average) and 0.425 – 0.300 mm (small). The systems were run for a total of 29 days under hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 hours. The performances of several effluent quality parameters of POME regarding the use of PKS activated carbon of different sizes were studied. PKS activated carbon with size 1.180 – 0.710 mm showed the highest removal performances for chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammoniacal-nitrogen (AN), and solids, with 41 %, 84.6 %, and 88 % of removal respectively. The system with PKS activated carbon of size 4.750 - 2.360 mm showed the highest performance in removing TP (45 %), while 1.180 – 0.710 mm size of PKS activated carbon showed the highest performance in removing TN (53 %). The system was also found to effectively reduce the effluent colour. In overall, the PKS activated carbon of size 1.180 – 0.710 mm showed the best results as a carrier material to be used in the micro-bioreactor system in treating POME compared to the other two sizes.

This study evaluated the efficiency of deshelled papaya seeds as the natural coagulant in improving quality of river water. The deshelled papaya seeds biomass was mainly characterized for functional groups using FTIR, surface charge and protein content. Coagulation and flocculation tests were conducted using batch test for various dosages and pH values. The optimum dosage and pH were then tested in treating river of Class III to Class V. The functional groups in deshelled papaya seeds were O-H, C=O and C-O groups. The surface charge and protein content was +0.4 meq/g and 363 mg/g, respectively. The deshelled papaya seeds coagulant was able to remove turbidity up to 87.6 and 88.3% for river of Class III and Class IV, respectively, as well as 57.6 and 62.1% of total coliform and escherichia coli, respectively, from Class III river at dosage 196 mg/L and pH 4. This study demonstrated that the deshelled Carica papaya seeds-derived coagulant is capable in treating common pollutants of river and simultaneously shows antibacterial properties.