Water hyacinth
Practical Action
number of countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, and India.
Fibre board. Another application of water hyacinth is the production of fibreboards for a
variety of end uses. The House and Building Research Institute in Dhaka has carried out
experimental work on the production of fibre boards from water hyacinth fibre and other
indigenous materials. They have developed a locally manufactured production plant for
producing fibreboard for general-purpose use and also a bituminised board for use as a
low cost roofing material.
The chopped water hyacinth stalks are reduced by boiling and then washed and beaten.
The pulp is bleached and mixed with waste paper pulp and a filter agent such as china
clay and the pH is balanced. The boards are floated in a vat on water and then finished
in a hand press and hung to dry. The physical properties of the board are sufficiently
good for use on indoor partition walls and ceilings. Investigations into the use of bitumen
coated boards for roofing are underway.
Yarn and rope. The fibre from the stems of the water hyacinth plant can be used to make
rope. The stalk from the plant is shredded lengthways to expose the fibres and then left
to dry for several days. The rope making process is similar to that of jute rope. The
finished rope is treated with sodium metabisulphite to prevent it from rotting. In
Bangladesh, the rope is used by a local furniture manufacturer who winds the rope
around a cane frame to produce an elegant finished product.
Basket work. In the Philippines water hyacinth is dried and used to make baskets and
matting for domestic use. The key to a good product is to ensure that the stalks are
properly dried before being used. If the stalks still contain moisture then this can cause
the product to rot quite quickly. In India, water hyacinth is also used to produce similar
goods for the tourist industry. Traditional basket making and weaving skills are used.
Charcoal briquetting. This is an idea which has been proposed in Kenya to deal with the
rapidly expanding carpets of water hyacinth which are evident on many parts of Lake
Victoria. The proposal is to develop a suitable technology for the briquetting of charcoal
dust from the pyrolysis of water hyacinth. The project is still very much at the idea stage
and both a technical and a socio-economic study are planned to evaluate the prospects
for such a project. It is suggested that a small-scale water hyacinth charcoal briquetting
industry could have several beneficial aspects for the lakeside communities:
providing an alternative income
providing an alternative source of biomass
improvement of the lake shore environment through the removal of water hyacinth
improved access to the lake and less risk to maritime transport
reduced health risk associated with the presence of water hyacinth
alleviation of pressure on other biomass fuel sources, such as wood, thereby reducing
deforestation and associated soil erosion
The technical aspects are yet to be fully developed and tested but 7 main stages have
been identified in the process of converting the plant into charcoal briquettes:
harvesting and collection of the plant
drying
collection and transport to the kiln
pyrolysis
mixing of the resultant dust with a binder
pressing into briquettes
marketing of briquettes
5