ZWL Self-Priming Pump for Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)

Palm oil mill effluent — POME — is one of the toughest wastewaters a pump can face, and mills across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand move enormous volumes of it. It’s hot (often 80–90°C fresh from the process), acidic (around pH 4–5), oily, and thick with fibre and suspended solids. Pick the wrong pump and it clogs, corrodes or cooks. Here’s how a ZWL direct-coupled self-priming sewage pump is configured for POME.

Heat and acid — build it right

Two things drive the specification:

• Temperature. Fresh POME runs hot. The ZWL handles media up to around 80°C as standard, and to about 200°C on a special high-temperature build — so for hot POME straight off the press, ask for the high-temp configuration.
• Acidity. At roughly pH 4–5, POME will slowly attack cast iron. The stainless steel body (pH 2–13 tolerance) is the durable choice.

So a typical POME pump is a high-temperature stainless ZWL.

Solids, fibre and oil

POME carries palm fibre, nut and shell fragments, sludge and free oil. The ZWL’s non-clog passage clears solids up to about 60% of the port diameter and fibre up to five times it, so the fibrous load flows through. Being self-priming and dry-mounted, it draws from the cooling pond, ponding system or effluent pit on its own — no foot valve, primes itself after the first fill — and the big DN200–DN300 models handle the high volumes a mill produces.

Range for POME duty

• Material: stainless steel (pH 2–13) for acidic POME
• Medium temperature: ≤80°C standard, to ~200°C special (hot POME)
• Flow rate: up to 800 m³/h (DN200–DN300 for mill volumes)
• Passable solids & fibre: solids to ~60% of port, fibre to ~5×
• Self-priming height: 4.5–5.5 m

Tell us your POME temperature, pH and flow, and we’ll spec the right high-temp stainless ZWL.