Development Agenda. In many countries, emerging issues of water resource management have been recognized as research topics including control of environmental nuisances, especially water hyacinth and other fast growing plants 1-4. Among those invasive plants, water hyacinth, which is one of perennial aquatic weeds, could be considered as biomass, which refers to organic compound materials. As a result, such biomass can be a sustainable source of chemicals or fuels. Because of its fast growing and excessive quantity, water hyacinth causes environmental problems, such as decreasing oxygen content in water resources, obstr u c t ing water t r a n s p o r t a t ion, and consequently harming the ecological system 1, 2. Meanwhile, innovation of novel functional materials focusing on functionality, quality, cost and quality are important. Those novel materials could be applied to some new aspects including renewable energy and reduction of environmental burden. In order to utilize such biomass effectively, its conversion to other useful products is a crucially important research aspect. It has been recognized that hydrothermal technique is an effective method for converting organic compounds to various useful gases, liquid and solid products, such as hydrogen, glucose, porous carbon and other derivatives. Both quantity and quality of those products depend on the composition of biomass and operating condition 5-7. In more specific viewpoint, hydrothermal carbonization could be considered as an efficient method for production of carbonaceous material because water molecules under a regulated condition of high temperature and pressure could effectively react with lignocellulosic ingredient of biomass to produce solid carbonaceous products. Therefore, as a linkage between the issue of environmental nuisance reduction and novel functional material production, this article addresses the conversion of water hyacinth into high value-added carbonaceous materials using hydrothermal carbonization technology. In general, such carbonaceous solid products, which contain high carbon content, could be utilized in many applications, such as electrode material, catalyst and fertilizer 8, 9. In this work, repetitive experiments were carried to investigate effect of treating temperature and time on hydrothermal treatment of dried water hyacinth powder to produce carbonaceous products, which were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and specific surface area analyzer for confirmation of their usefulness for ecosystem control activities, which would support technical competency needs in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. II. EXPERIMENTAL Synthesis of carbonaceous material Typical samples of water hyacinth were collected from a pond in Thammasat University, Rangsit, Patumtani, Thailand. For removing moisture content, samples of water hyacinth were dried at 105ºC for 24 hours. The dried water hyacinth was cut into small pieces by a disk mill and then classified based on its size distribution as shown in Fig.1. It is noted that the ground water hyacinth powder possessed an average size of 585 μm with a standard deviation of 63 μm. In hydrothermal treatment process, 20 g of the ground water hyacinth powder and 40 cm3 of de-ionized water were added into an autoclave reactor, which was heated in a temperature range of 160 to 220ºC for 4, 8 and 12 hours. Next, autoclave reactor was quenched immediately by cold water to stop the reaction 9. Solid product was separated and washed with de-ionized water until pH = 5. The received solid productwas dried again in the oven at 105ºC for 24 hours. Finally the solid product was carbonized using a tubular 146 Proceedings of the International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
Proceedings of International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Sustainable Development Goals : Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016 at the Sirindhorn International Environmental Park, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
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