Author(s): Sumarlin Shangdiar; Kang-Shin Chen; Shang-Cyuan Chen; Feng-Chih Chou; Yu-Chieh Lin; Che-An Cho; Yuan-Chung Lin
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Abstract: Eichhornia crassipes commonly known as Water hyacinth is a free floating perennial aquatic plant ubiquitously found in lakes, rivers and other water bodies across the globe. Water Hyacinth can grow to a height of 1 meter above the surface of the water. A large number of studies have been conducted using the stems and leaves of water hyacinth as an absorbent for heavy metals and other water pollutants, but nevertheless, there are several interesting and novel applications which are considered as advantageous. Water hyacinth has been demonstrated to be useful to develop supercapacitors for the production of bioethanol as well as to improve the immune resistance of plants and animals. It is considered as a toxic weed in many parts of the world since it grows very fast forming thick mats and depletes nutrients and oxygen from water bodies adversely affecting the growth of both plants and animals. Hence, conversion of this problematic weed to value added chemicals and fuels helps in the self-sustainability especially for developing countries. Product generated from water hyacinth is considered as a dynamic progression towards advancement in bio products because of its high cellulose and hemicellulose content. This study investigated the possibility of enhancing the saccharification rate of sugar production from water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) by microwave heating system. A number of parameters have been adopted to explore the conversion rates of fibers into fermentable sugar. The structural changes of the fibers after microwave treatment with dilute sulfuric acid was observed on the residue by using X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR) and Environmental Scanning Electron Micrograph (ESEM) analysis. The results obtained after the study illustrates that the hydrolysis time reduces to approximately 40% and effectively improve the rate of saccharification to 13.94% with optimal sugar concentration of 4650 mg/L.
Year: 2018