Water hyacinth samples from before and after pretreatment processes were viewed under light microscope to detect changes on their morphologies. Good morphological comparisons of water hyacinth samples were obtained at 1000magnification.
In the specimen of untreated water hyacinth (Sample 1), it can be ob-served that the organelles are randomly positioned within the cells’ cytoplasm. The cell walls are intact and not damaged.
After being steamed at 121 ± 3C for 30 min, the cells were seen to be swollen and overlapped with the adjacent cells.
Some cells were burst resulting from overswelling, induced by the constant heat supply from the steaming process.
As the cells collapsed, the bio-mass structure had weakened and the cells’ content (moisture,organelles) being removed. Similar observation was also found on boiled samples where cells are swollen and burst