Malaysian Journal of Civil Engineering 27(1):144-151 (2015) All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia TECHNICAL NOTE CHARACTERIZATION OF PALM OIL MILL SECONDARY EFFLUENT (POMSE). Nurul Shairah Ahmad Shahrifun 1 *, Norul Nazilah Ab’lah 2 , Hazilia Hussain 1 , Azmi Aris 3 , Qistina Omar 2 & Norlaily Ahmad 2 1 Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam, 42300, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia 2 Center of Foundation Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Puncak Alam, Level 5, FSK 1,5, 42300, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia 3 Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai, 81310 Johor, Malaysia *Corresponding Author: nurulshairah_ahmadshahrifun@yahoo.com Abstract: This paper reports on the characteristics of the Palm Oil Mill Secondary Effluent (POMSE) in four different period of sampling. The aim of this study was to measure the value of the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD 5 ), color, total suspended solid (TSS), turbidity, iron ferrous, and total iron in POMSE. These basic parameters are crucial in determining a suitable treatment system to be acted on the wastewater so that the optimum condition of the treatment could be obtained. Results obtained in this study indicated that BOD 5 concentration lies between 249 to 267mg/L; COD reading were between 3234 to 3624mg/L; Color were between 3860 to 5350ADMI ; total iron were between 0.24 to 1.75mg/L; ferrous iron were 1.75mg/L; TSS were between 1635 to 1875 and turbidity, 2865 to 2894NTU. Results suggest that aerobic and anaerobic treatment were not sufficient in reaching the standard discharged limit set by Department of Environment (DOE) Malaysia. Keywords: Characterization, palm oil mill secondary effuent, wastewater treatment, COD, Color. 1.0 Introduction Malaysia is known as the second largest producer of palm oil mill after Indonesia. This important industries, however has created other major disposal problem in disposing the lignocelluloic biomass such as oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF), empty fruits bunches (EFB) and palm pressed fibres (PPF), palm shells and palm oil mill effluent (POME) (Abdullah and Sulaiman, 2013). Amongst all waste produced, researchers had concluded that POME is the most difficult waste to handle due to its high volume generated (Madaki and Seng, 2013) and difficulties in handling the