A real explosion: The requirement of steam explosion pretreatment

► We present catapult explosion mode which completes the explosion within 0.0875 s. ► We compare the effect of pretreatment in the different steam pretreatment methods. ► Without EPD the severity factor cannot describe the entire SE process alone. ► Explosion speed will cause qualitative change in the effect of biomass pretreatment. ► Only the real explosion will satisfy the two requirements of consistency.