**5. Conclusions**

Alkaline pretreatment was more effective in pretreating CC biomass compared to the SSB biomass. Both Ca(OH)<sup>2</sup> and NaOH pretreatment removed lignin from the CC biomass, while only NaOH removed lignin from the SSB biomass. Biomass compositional analysis revealed that these agricultural feedstocks differed in their chemical composition because the CC biomass contained hemicellulose (33–35%) as its major component, compared to SSB biomass that consisted mainly of cellulose (17–24%). Specific enzyme activity revealed that the termite metagenome derived enzymes MFE-5E, MFE-5H and MFE-45 were multifunctional enzymes, which hydrolysed substrates associated with hemicellulose (various xylan and xyloglucan) and amorphous cellulose (CMC). These observations explain why the HEC-H formulated with MFEs effectively hydrolysed the CC biomass preferentially to SSB biomass. We propose that the HEC-H cocktail can be used for the hydrolysis of hemicellulose- and amorphous cellulose-rich agricultural feedstocks during the bioconversion process in the biorefinery industry.

**Author Contributions:** M.S.M. carried out all the experiments and performed data analysis. K.R. purified and provided the termite derived enzymes. M.S.M., S.M. and A.B. participated in the experimental design of synergy studies and synergy data analysis. M.S.M., S.M. and A.B. designed the pretreatment and data analysis. M.S.M. and B.I.P. conceptualised the study and participated in its design coordination. M.S.M. drafted the manuscript. B.I.P. and K.R. supervised and co-supervised the study, respectively. M.S.M. prepared the manuscript while S.M., K.R. and B.I.P. contributed in editing and final preparation of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** The current study was financially supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) National Biocatalysis Initiative in South Africa, and Rhodes University.

**Acknowledgments:** We thank the Wood Sciences Faculty at Stellenbosch University, South Africa for biomass compositional charecterisation. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and therefore the NRF does not accept liability in regard thereto.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
