Environmental and Toxicology Management (ETM)
Vol. 2 No. 3 (2022): Environmental assessment and its benefits

Characterization and morphological study of microbes in treated palm oil mill effluents

Afiqah Rosdi (Faculty of Civil Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Arau, 02600, Malaysia)
Farrah Aini Dahalan (Faculty of Civil Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Arau, 02600, Malaysia)
Loh Zhang Zhan (Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia)
Peyman Babakhani (School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK)
Shahriar Shams (Civil Engineering Programme Area, Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB), Brunei Darussalam)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Nov 2022

Abstract

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is wastewater generated by palm oil milling. Due to its extremely polluting qualities, it must be treated before being discharged into the water course. This study was aimed to evaluate the bacterial growth of raw and treated POME as well as identifying indigenous microorganisms by determining the morphological characteristics of bacteria that were found in the POME. The bacterial growth was identified by bacterial enumeration of colony forming units (CFU). Besides, the morphological identification of bacteria was determined by using gram staining. The results show the best bacterial growth curve is from serial dilution factor of 10-6 with a total of 2.24 x 10-6 CFU/mL in raw POME and optimum growth on day seven. While for the treated POME, the total is 1.97 x 10-6 CFU/mL and recorded the optimum growth on day ten of incubation. The growth curve indicates the number of colonies in raw POME is higher than treated POME. It concluded that treated POME still has the bacteria although it has been treated. Apart from that, from the morphological identification by gram staining, the bacteria were Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Micrococcus luteus. From a gram staining, this research obtained all gram positive in purple colour from the POME samples. Two of them in treated POME were in Bacillus shape while the other two from raw and treated POME were in coccus shape, respectively.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

etm

Publisher

Subject

Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology Chemical Engineering, Chemistry & Bioengineering Civil Engineering, Building, Construction & Architecture Environmental Science Public Health

Description

Environmental and Toxicology Management is a peer-reviewed journal for the publication of original articles, short communication, review articles, and case studies on the fundamentals, applications, and management of environmental and toxicology. Environmental and Toxicology Management is published ...