Background: The C4 perennial grassMiscanthus giganteushas proved to be a promising bio-energy crop. However, the biomass recalcitrance is a major challenge in biofuel production. Effective pretreatment is necessary for achieving a high efficiency in converting the crop to fermentable sugars, and subsequently biofuels and other valued products.Results: Miscanthus lutarioripariouswas pretreated with a liquid hot water (LHW) reactor. Between the pretreatment severity (PS) of 2.56-4.71, the solid recovery was reduced; cellulose recovery remained nearly unchanged; and the Klason lignin content was slightly increased which was mainly due to the dissolving of hemicellulose and the production of a small amount of pseudo-lignin. The result shows that a LHW PS of 4.71 could completely degrade the hemicellulose inMiscanthus. Hemicellulose removal dislodged the enzymatic barrier of cellulose, and the ethanol conversion of 98.27% was obtained.Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that LHW served as an effective pretreatment in case thatMiscanthus lutarioripariouswas used for ethanol production by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. The combination and the pretreatment method ofMiscanthusfeedstock holds a great potential for biofuel production.

As the most abundant aromatic compounds, lignin is still underutilized due to its relatively low quality. In order to improve its quality, two pretreatment technologies, wet ball milling (WBM) and ionic liquid pretreatment (ILP) were tested on the industrial lignin and evaluated on the average molecular weight and polydispersity, surface morphology, and functional groups changes. The results showed that the lignin pretreated by the WBM with phosphoric acid presented dramatic decrease of polydipersity (23%) and increase of phenolic hydroxyl content (9%). While, the ILP treated samples exhibited the significant reduction of the average molecular weight and polydispersity. The decrease on the particle size and the emergence of the porous structure were found when treated with [Emim][OAc]. In addition, the remarkable reduction of the methoxy groups were observed to be 50% and 45% after treated with [Bmim]Cl and [Emim][OAc], respectively.