A novel combined pretreatment of ball milling and microwave irradiation for enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose

► Bioconversion potential on MCC was evaluated with a new pretreatment method. ► An equation correlating glucose yield with CrI, SSA and DP was deduced. ► The rate of enzymatic hydrolysis was much more sensitive to CrI than SSA and DP. ► Combination of BM and short time MWI is a feasible approach to treat biomass.