Effects of Compressing Pressure, Screen Size and Moisture Content on Pellets Density of Water Hyacinth

摘要

Water hyacinth (WH) has been one the most troublesome caused by invasive species in the warm regions over the world. However, it has the potential to be compressed into biomass pellets as a local source of substitute and renewable solid fuel in the future. The method and preparation of comperssing WH pellets were investigated in this study using a compressing apparatus in the lab. WH samples were ground by a hammer mill with three different screen sizes (2.0, 3.0and 4.0mm), compressed with five levels of compressing forces (1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000N) at three levels of moisture content (10%, 15% and 20% wb). The density of each sample pellets was calculated and recorded. The effects of compressing pressure, screen size and moisture content on pellets density were analyzed depending on the statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA). It was found in this study that all the three factors except screen size affected WH pellets density significantly, high quality of WH pellets in terms of high pellets density can be obtained under a compressing pressure about 80MPa and at a moisture contnet about 15% (wb).