Development of Water Hyacinth Drying and Sulfur Fumigation Chamber for Ban Sang Community Ban Sang Sub-district, Muang District, Phayao Province

Abstract

This research is to develop a Water Hyacinth drying and sulfur fumigation chamber for Ban Sang community, Ban Sang Sub-district, Muang District, Phayao Province. The objectives of this research are to reduce the time of drying process and sulfur fumigation process done in the Ban Sang community. The dried water hyacinth obtained from the chamber with its automatic control system has met material requirements for the communities’s use. The automatic controlsystem uses electronic devices and a microcontroller to control temperature and drying time.

This research found that the optimal conditions for drying and sulfur fumigation  are  drying under the temperature ranging from 70 – 80 ^oC for 4 hours and then fumigated with sulfur dioxide at temperature of 70 ^oC     for 1 hour. The obtained products are dried and whitened similar to the products produced by Ban Sang’s method. The weight of dried water hyacinth is 106.67 g similar to the dried water hyacinth produced by Ban Sang’s method. The drying and fumigation time by the chamber is 5 hours, compared to Ban Sang’s  method which requires 5 days.