Dewatering Tube filled with sand has been widely used in breakwater and other dyke buildings. Geotube is made of woven and filled with mud and sand. After dewatering, geotube superposes to form the dyke core and covered by protective layer.

During the production of crude palm oil, large amount of waste water and by-products are generated. POME or Palm Oil Mill Effluent is an underutilized liquid waste stream from palm oil mills which is generated during the palm oil extraction/decanting process and often seen as a serious environmental issue but it is a very good source for biomethane production.

POME is a colloidal suspension containing 95-96% water, 0.6-0.7% oil and 4-5% total solids, which include 2-4% suspended solids. Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) generally ranges between 25,000 and 65,000 mg/L, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) ranges between 40,000 and 120,000 mg/L

Most palm oil mills and refineries have their own treatment systems for POME, which is easily amenable to biodegradation due to its high organic content. The treatment system usually consists of anaerobic and aerobic ponds without capturing biogas released from the process.

POME is commonly treated using open ponding system just to comply with government regulation without capturing biogas released from the process. A conventional open lagoon system consists of four types of ponds: a fat pit, cooling pond, anaerobic pond, and aerobic pond. The fat pit recovers any remaining FOG in the POME and is generally recovered by the mill operator. The cooling pond decreases the temperature of POME, creating optimal conditions for the decomposition of organic material in the anaerobic and aerobic ponds. After treatment in these four ponds, the effluent is safe to discharge to waterways or apply on land as a fertiliser. Open lagoon system releases large volumes of methane to the atmosphere primarily from the organic decomposition that occurs in the anaerobic pond.   

The following photos show some lagoons full of sludge and silt those have to be removed regularly to avoid filling in the bottom of the lagoons.  

By dewatering the POME sludge using Tanru Tube units, the solid particles can be retained within the tube, and the liquid discharged is either recycled back through the plant or discharged out through the polishing ponds. In addition, solids within the Geotextile Tube units offer a protected environment that facilitates the  acceleration of microbial breakdown of waste.

The POME sludge does not require polymer dosing and will be discharged into the Geotextile units to improve the purity of discharge water, and accelerate the drying process. The Geotextile tube units are filled with sludge directly from the anaerobic pond. Despite not adding polymer, the POME sludge can dewater well. Once dry, the Geotetile units are slit open and the degraded mulch can be used as fertilizer. Individual Geotextile units supplied to POME applications are manufactured from fabrics designed specifically for organic waste dewatering and sized to meet plant discharge volume and land space available for the deployment of the Geotextile units.

Geotextile units offer the following benefits:

1.higher tube solids capacity

2.faster dewatering and by-product generation

3.significantly lower overall cost per m³ slurry processed