Pretreatment of rice straw using an extrusion/extraction process at bench-scale for producing cellulosic ethanol

► An extrusion/extraction pretreatment process was proposed. ► The pretreatment of rice straw gave high yield and concentration of monomeric sugar. ► The xylose concentration was greater than dilute-acid hydrolysis only. ► Obtained hydrolysate can be used for the production bioethanol and bio-based chemicals.