A Sustainable Approach In Managing Aquatic Ecosystems Of Koshi Region By Harnessing Thermal Energy From Water Hyacinth

Abstract

Water hyacinth, scientifically known as Eichhornia crassipes is an invasive freshwater plant which disturbs water quality, ecosystem health, and livelihoods in aquatic ecosystems. Koshi region of Bihar state in India has several wetlands which are majorly used for the cultivation of foxnuts or Makhana. However, these wetlands are prone to the infestation of water hyacinth and pose a major ecological and economical challenge. However, biogas production from aquatic plants is gaining interest of many researchers of thermal engineering domain. The current work has been presented to demonstrate thermal energy potential of water hyacinth which otherwise considered as a water weed. The work involves collection, processing and generation of biogas through anaerobic digestion of water hyacinth. In house digesters have been made and used in this study. The anaerobic digestion process involves the decomposition of water hyacinth mixture by a consortium of microorganisms, resulting in the production of biogas. The current experimental results show that water hyacinth can be a potential constituent for biogas production. The results show that the digester mixture with water hyacinth as a cosubstrate has almost 96% higher amount of biogas generation than mixture with only inoculum as a substrate.