Design and Fabrication of Mixing and Chopping Machine for Water Hyacinth and Organic Fertilizer

Abstract

Design and Build a Water Hyacinth Mixing Shredder with Organic Fertilizer The objective is to bring water hyacinth, which is a weed, to use it to benefit by chopping it down and mixing it with organic fertilizer to make fertilizer. The prototype built has three main parts: the structure, the sub-chopper uses two main blades at a 30-degree angle, six sub-blades, and the blender uses a small 5.5-horsepower gasoline engine with a gear ratio. Computing 1:60 is the power source with the mix. Change the rotational speed of the sub chopper 550, 750 and 950 rpm, respectively. To study the performance of the prototype The test showed that the shredding rate and the performance of the machine increase with the rotational speed at which the shredder has a maximum efficiency of 950 rpm. It can chop 16.7 kg of water hyacinth per hour. The efficiency of the machine is 92.8 percent with a fuel consumption of 0.71 liters per hour. Engineering Economic Analysis It was found that the cost of production of compound fertilizer from water hyacinth shredder mixed with organic fertilizer was 0.243 baht/kg and has a payback period of 2.9 years.