Abstract:
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), is among aggressive weeds that threatens water
bodies wherever it appears. In Ethiopia this weed was first seen in Koka Lake over five
decades ago, but its aggressiveness increased recently since it is currently observed on several
lakes and reservoirs. On the one hand, the removal of this weed is one major problem. On the
other hand, not knowing what to do with this weed after it has been removed is other
challenge. This study tries to address this second challenge. The study is aimed to produce fuel
briquettes from water hyacinth using clay as a binding agent. For the study, water hyacinth
briquettes were produced with clay fractions of 3%, 5%, 7%, and 10%. Thereafter the burning
characteristics of the briquettes were studied and compared with that of wood charcoal. The
parameters used for comparison were onset of cooking and effective cooking times. The
results obtained indicate that the fractions of binding agents did not show significant
differences in terms of onset of cooking. However, there were significant differences in
effective cooking times of the treatments in which the briquette of 10% clay binding agent
outperformed the rest, with the result of 29 minutes. The results obtained showed that only 3%
of the initial weight of the plant gets converted to burnable char. The overall result indicated
water hyacinth to be a low energy density plant. Therefore, the use of this plant as energy
source may not be cost effective unless otherwise binding agents that are by themselves
contributing to the energy or binding agents that can elongate heat retention times are
selected. The use of cow dung can be an option for the former, and perhaps the use of more
clay fraction can be an option for the latter.
