Industrial-scale steam explosion pretreatment of sugarcane straw for enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose for production of second generation ethanol and value-added products

► Industrial steam explosion was applied to sugarcane straw. ► Use of grinded straw makes viable the large-scale pretreatment process. ► The process could be effective for pretreatment and delignication or delignification only. ► Hydrolysis conversion decreased after the alkaline treatment in high temperatures. ► Apparently the not removed lignin recovered the pulp decreasing the enzymatic access.