In this study, the pretreatment of cassava residues by thermal-dilute sulfuric acid (TDSA) hydrolysis was investigated by means of a statistically designed set of experiments. A three-factor central composite design (CCD) was employed to identify the optimum pretreatment condition of cassava residues for methane production. The individual and interactive effects of temperature, H(2)SO(4) concentration and reaction time on increase of methane yield (IMY) were evaluated by applying response surface methodology (RSM). After optimization, the resulting optimum pretreatment condition was 157.84 degrees C, utilizing 2.99% (w/w TS) H(2)SO(4) for 20.15 min, where the maximum methane yield (248 mL/g VS) was 56.96% higher than the control (158 mL/g VS), which was very close to the predict value 56.53%. These results indicate the model obtained through RSM analysis is suit to predict the optimum pretreatment condition and there is great potential of using TDSA pretreatment of cassava residues to enhance methane yield. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.