PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT TREATMENT

Statistics on Palm oil consumption in India is truly staggering : India is the second largest consumer of edible oils in the world after China, and consumes nearly 17 % of the world palm oil production.  It is also the largest importer of palm oil, accounting for 44 % of world imports !

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-others/tp-banking-on-agribiz/article2644516.ece

Persistent attempts by the Government to increase acreage under oil palm cultivation, processing and domestic production of palm oil have met with little success : I am not surprised given the quality, competence and dedication or vision of the Politicians and their Babus in recent times, whose main focus is on politics, and petty politicking on every conceivable issue and non issue - Development of the Nation and welfare of the citizens be damned.  I shudder to think of the fate of the Green revolution of Dr. M.S Swaminathan and the White revolution of Dr.V. Kurien of the 60's, if these ideas were to be conceived in the India of today.

Here is an interesting story of a Palm oil Mill and its Effluent treatment, set in the 90's in Karnataka, avaricious Babus already beginning to rule the roost, busy lining their pockets for many a rainy day I presume.

49. PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT (POME) TREATMENT

I forget now how it was that Mr. V K Abraham, Executive Director of Karnataka Oswal Oil palms Limited ( KOOL ) zeroed in on me to be their consultant to design the Wastewater treatment facilities for their upcoming Palm oil mill in Shimoga District in Karnataka.  In the year 1992, KOOL was promoted as a joint venture project of the Oswal group of Punjab ( Oswal woolen mills, Oswal Foods, Oswal Sugars etc.) and the Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation         ( KSIIDC).

When Mr. Abraham put up my proposal for consultancy services to the KSIIDC for approval, the decision making authority there, a high ranking officer rejected my proposal on the flimsy grounds that he did not like the looks of our Company Letterhead !!!  I later came to know from a General Manager of Kissan ( ketchup, jams) that this @S#$O&B  used to demand a fee from people seeking an appointment with him even on matters of normal and routine official business.  Talk about probity in public service in such high offices !  This same uncouth lout on retirement from Govt. service was a middleman to a leading real estate developer from the North, seeking to set up a huge township right on the banks of the T G Halli reservoir, a drinking water source at that time to the City of Bangalore.  Selling his soul to make a fast buck was this creature’s specialty.  Thankfully this project was summarily shot down by saner counsel in the Government at that time.

The KOOL consultancy assignment was finally awarded to Kirloskar Consultants Pvt. Ltd. presumably on the basis of their better looking Letterhead, at a much higher, inflated fee.  Kirloskar Consultants promptly subcontracted to me the entire assignment of designing and engineering the KOOL wastewater treatment plant.

The palm oil mill was the first of its kind in India.  There was no previous knowledge or experience of this kind of wastewater to fall back upon.  And in the age before internet and google, I found some relevant literature on this subject in the British Council Library, then situated on St. Marks’ Road, above Koshys’ Restaurant, famous for its thickly sliced buttered toast and coffee ( Koshy’s I mean).

I had to do a detailed study of the palm oil processing process right from the time of harvesting of the Fresh Fruit Bunches ( FFB), right through  the process of sterilisation- stripping- pressing - clarification – depericarping- nut cracking- hydrocyclone etc.  Material and water balance for the process had to be meticulously worked out for Indian conditions.   Finally the treatment plant design was presented and accepted by KOOL, and implemented on site.

The BOD ( Biochemical Oxygen Demand)  of the wastewater is very high at around 20,000- 30,000 mg/L, contributed in the main by Triglycerides, Mono- and Diglycerides, palmitic acid, tocopherols, carotene (which imparts the characteristic red colour to crude palm oil ) phospholipids, carbohydrates, sterols, alcohols etc., all fairly easily biodegradable.  I proposed a two stage anaerobic lagoon treatment followed by a two stage aerobic treatment to reduce the BOD to below acceptable limits.  The presence of beneficient enzymes such as Lypases and Lypoxygenases was also in favour of proposing the two stage anaerobic treatment in the first instance.

Finally, land disposal of the treated water was recommended on the oil palm plantation itself for economic return from use of nutrients present in the treated water, with judicious application and irrigation rates to avoid ground water Nitrate accretions.

The technical paper on the first palm oil wastewater treatment plant in India was published later in the Indian Oil Palm Journal Vol 3, No. 13 May – June 1993.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                    December 25, 2011

P.S :  I came to know much later that both Mr. Abhey Kumar Oswal and Mr. V K Abraham were well known to my father, K S Seshadri, a doyen of the edible oil industry after 45 years of hard and pioneering work in the field : an oil technologist from the VJTI, Bombay, he had humble beginnings as a lab chemist in the Bombay Oil Industries ( now called Marico ) where he first formulated Saffola. He later went on to set up scores of edible oil plants and refineries all over India, and finally set up and operated his own solvent extraction and refinery unit in Dharwad, Karnataka : he died in harness on December 12, 1992 at the age of 72. – R.I P.