Pretreatment and enzymic saccharification of water hyacinth cellulose

► Water hyacinth was pretreated, for removal of lignin under variable conditions. ► Combined pretreatment with 0.1% NaClO2 and peracetic resulted in removal of 99.3% of lignin. ► Under these conditions, the recovered cellulose content was 96%. ► Cellulase hydrolysis using 20 FPU/g substrate this sample showed 90% saccharification with 80.8% cellulose conversion. ► Addition of cellobiase to the reaction mixture increased cellulose conversion and saccharification by 10%.