Review on pretreatment methods and ethanol production from cellulosic water hyacinth

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biomass resources are renewable materials that can be converted to fermentable sugars and subsequently into ethanol. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is a cellulosic aquatic plant that has high carbohydrates, low lignin content, and notable reducing sugars content in its structure. Based on the literature review in the case of water hyacinth, the most frequently used pretreatment methods were acid and alkali, while ionic liquid and microwave-assisted methods were used rarely. The dominant sugars were glucose, xylose, galactose, arabinose, and mannose. Based on the findings, cellulase and S. cerevisiae were mostly used for enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation of water hyacinth to ethanol, respectively. This review presents the recent studies in pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation of water hyacinth biomass into ethanol.