Surfactant-assisted pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of spent mushroom compost for the production of sugars

► Accumulation of spent mushroom compost (SMC) poses serious environmental problems. ► We describe a surfactant-assisted process for producing sugars from SMC. ► Ninety seven percent of glucan and 44% of xylan were converted into monosaccharides. ► Incorporation of PEG 6000 reduced the cellulase requirement by 77%. ► Zwitterionic surfactants improved acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis.