Photocatalytic fuel cells (PFCs) are considered an advanced technology in wastewater treatment as they are able to remove organic based wastewater by using the principle of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and at the same time generate electricity. Despite PFCs being used to treat different types of organic based wastewater efficiently, the use of PFCs in palm oil mill effluent (POME) is still considered rare. Hence, the present research was carried out to determine the optimal conditions of contact time, pH, initial organic concentration and light intensity in order to remove the organic matter present in diluted POME. Our PFC system was constructed by using NaCl as the supporting electrolyte with ZnO/Zn as the photoanode and platinum wire as the cathode. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency and the amount of electricity generated was monitored in different optimization experiments using a conventional fluorescence light source. Under optimal conditions, the COD removal efficiency increased from 7% to 74 %, while the power density output also increased from 1.73 to 35.85 μW/cm². The PFC was found to work optimally at pH 7 with a light intensity of 1300 lx for 6 h. Meanwhile, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) images revealed the high organic matter concentration in POME can lead to the deposition of an organic layer on the photoanode surface which subsequently reduced the COD removal efficiency to 17.4 %. This result has indicated that PFC is not suitable for treating the fresh POME directly from the mill, but it is more suitable for treating POME, from the last biological treatment pond.

光催化燃料电池（PFC）被认为是废水处理中的一项先进技术，因为它们能够利用高级氧化过程（AOP）的原理去除有机废水，同时发电。尽管已将PFC有效地用于处理不同类型的有机废水，但仍认为在棕榈油厂废水（POME）中使用PFC很少。因此，进行本研究以确定接触时间，pH，初始有机物浓度和光强度的最佳条件，以去除稀释的POME中存在的有机物。我们的PFC系统是通过使用NaCl作为辅助电解质，以ZnO / Zn作为光阳极和铂丝作为阴极来构建的。使用常规荧光光源在不同的优化实验中监测化学需氧量（COD）去除效率和产生的电量。在最佳条件下，COD去除效率从7％提高到74％，而功率密度输出也从1.73提高到35.85μW/ cm²。发现PFC在pH 7和1300 lx的光强度下6h最佳工作。同时，扫描电子显微镜（SEM）图像显示POME中高浓度的有机物可导致有机层沉积在光阳极表面，从而将COD去除效率降低至17.4％。该结果表明，PFC不适合直接从工厂中处理新鲜的POME，但更适合于从最后一个生物处理池处理POME。