Lakhs of rupees are spent every year on clearing canals, rivers and lakes of water hyacinth. Unfortunately, to little effect. So, if you can’t beat it, use it.
Take for example Ecoloop360, a small start-up based at Government Engineering College, Barton Hill, here. For the translational engineering students, water hyacinth is a raw material used to make products such as biomass briquettes. “Briquettes made from water hyacinth have industrial and household application. Today, most industry-category boilers in the State use sawdust briquettes brought from Tamil Nadu,” says Abhijith S., who, with Greeshma M.R. and Ardra S. Nair, founded the start-up.
Water hyacinth is collected and sun-dried for one to two weeks to reduce its moisture content to below 15%. It is ground down using a pulveriser. The resultant material is transferred to a briquetting press where it gets compressed.
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Biomass briquette is not the only product that can be developed from this aquatic weed. G. Nagendra Prabhu, who heads the Centre for Research on Aquatic Resources (CRAR) at SD College, Alappuzha, has mentored the students on developing various value-added products.
Formed in 2011, the CRAR has developed around 30-40 pulp-based products, including handicrafts, art canvas, disposables like plates and biodegradable nursery pots that can replace plastic. “'One of my students has developed duck feed and fish feed from it,” he said. Another area of use is the production of dye from the weed’s inflorescence. The CRAR stall won the third prize at the just-concluded VAIGA expo organised by the Agriculture Department in Thrissur.
“Aquatic weeds are like slow poison. They cause a great amount of biodiversity loss. But they too have their uses,” Dr. Prabhu said.
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