Water hyacinth ((Eichhornia crassipes [Mart.]solms) Chopper cum Crusher : A Solution for Lake Water Environment

Abstract

Water hyacinth   was originated in tropical South America and listed as one of the most productive and worst aquatic plants on Earth.  Its rapid spread has a significant influence on Lake Environment, water availability, food security, human health and national economics. It  is an international pest that respects no national boundaries. The greatest problem of processing of water hyacinth is its volume and weight.  Control methods like chemical control, Biological control and mechanical means were tried by various scientists. The results show that the biological method is slow whereas chemical methods are not advocated for fresh water lakes. The only solution was to control this weed by means of mechanical method.   Available water hyacinth chopper cum crusher was found superior as highest volume (66%) and weight (32%) reduction was achieved at maximum capacity (1.35 t/h) in comparison to other forage choppers but it has problem of frequent chocking and unbalancing.   Therefore, new mechanical system for chopping and crushing of water hyacinth was designed. The performance of the developed system was evaluated on the basis of its ability to volume and weight reduction. With the increase in feed rate, no. of blades and speeds of cutting cylinder and crushing roller the apparent specific volume decreased and weight loss increased.   The developed machine can reduce the specific volume up to 73 per cent and weight up to 45 per cent from its initial level at 2 t/h feed rate (capacity) with 36 blades mounted on cutting cylinder and operating the system at cutting cylinder speed of 13.33 m/s and crushing roller speed of 6.66 m/s.  The capacity of the developed system was found to be 2t/h  and 65.7 per cent reduction in cost of transportation can be achieved with the introduction of mechanical system.

Key Words: Chopper cum crusher, control methods, weight and volume, transport, Cost