Pretreatment as the crucial step for a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery: Testing the efficiency of wet explosion on different types of biomass

► Modified wet explosion pretreatment was applied to lignocellulosic biomass samples. ► The efficiency of the pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis was investigated. ► The pretreatment efficiency for biomass of different composition was identified. ► Two biomass samples showed a potential of around 300 L bioethanol/ton-DM.