IMPACT OF FRESH AND FERMENTED PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENTS ON SOIL PHYSICOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS AND ENZYME ACTIVITIES IN UMUAKA, NJABA, IMO STATE OF NIGERIA

📄 Project Abstract

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been a major environmental concern in countries producing them. This effluent is a land and aquatic pollutant when discharged fresh and fermented due to the presence of moderate amount of organic load in it and its phytotoxic properties (Okwute and Isu, 2007). The uses of wastes such as POME in agriculture and for land reclamation are a common practice in regions with its abundant supply especially for irrigation, soil conditioning, amendment and conservation purposes (Navas et al., 1998; Pascual et al., 2007). Palm oil production requires addition of large quantity of water which is eventually discharged as waste effluent (Nwoko and Ogunyemi, 2010). POME is a mixture of water, oil and natural sediments (solid particles and fibres), large quantity of which is generated annually during crude palm oil production (Salihu et al., 2011b) and is amenable to microbial degradation (Nwoko and Ogunyemi, 2010; Nwoko et al., 2010). POME includes dissolved constit...