A review of resource recovery from Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME): Recent technological innovations and pathways to circular economy

Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME), a waste created because of palm oil processing, poses significant environmental issues. POME has a lot of pollutants, including organic waste, nutrients, and heavy metals. This review extensively discusses successful cases of resource recovery from POME with challenges posed today in its treatment or management methods. It also covers the advanced technologies that seek to enhance resource recovery from POME, with the evaluation of the environmental impacts of the processes. POME an anaerobic effluent with high concentrations of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and trace heavy metals, i.e., cadmium, copper and zinc. These pollutants can give rise to eutrophication, deterioration of water quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, effective treatment is needed to change POME into useful resources such as biogas, organic fertilizers, and reclaimed water. The technologies that have been attempted include anaerobic digestion, membrane bioreactor and other microbial treatment systems, which are highly effective in pollutant reduction along with resource recovery. Another area investigated is integration possibilities for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) alongside hybrid systems that may incorporate biological and physical methodologies. Strong policy support and regulatory framework will engage in cementing sustainable practices that synergize palm oil production with circular economy models. Key challenges identified from our study include higher operational costs, variability of POME composition, limitations of current treatment methods, and constraints of scale-up and commercialization. However, there are economic benefits in favour of resource recovery from POME, which include avoiding costs for power and fertilizer production and generating additional income from bioproducts. Overall, effective management of POME is critical for the sustainability of the palm oil industry and its role towards achieving global sustainability goals.

Citation

Akuma, S. O., Yazdi, S. K., & Eze, U. (2026). A review of resource recovery from Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME): Recent technological innovations and pathways to circular economy. Next Sustainability, 7, 100261. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nxsust.2026.100261

Publisher

Elsevier

Journal

Next Sustainability

URI

https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/629896

DOI

10.1016/j.nxsust.2026.100261

Type

Article

Language

en

Description

ISSN

2949-8236

Additional Links

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949823626000164?via%3Dihub