Process intensification effect of ball milling on the hydrothermal pretreatment for corn straw enzymolysis

•Novel pretreatment of ball milling combined with hydrothermal method was presented.•Intensification effect of ball milling was significant for corn straw enzymolysis.•Ball milling destroyed the physical structure of corn straw.•Chemical (liquid mixture) method removed lignin and hemicellulose.•Glucose yield increased from 0.41 to 13.86mgmL−1 under the optimized condition. Enhancement of the cellulose accessibility is significant for biomass enzymatic hydrolysis. Here, we reported an efficient combined pretreatment for corn straw enzymolysis using ball milling and dilute acid hydrothermal method (a mixture solvent of H2O/ethanol/sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide liquid). The process intensification effect of ball milling on the pretreatment of the corn straw was studied through the comparative characterization of the physical–chemical properties of the raw and pretreated corn straw using FT-IR, BET, XRD, SEM, and HPLC analysis. The effect of the pretreatment temperature was also investigated. Furthermore, various pretreatment methods were compared as well. Moreover, the pretreatment performance was measured by enzymolysis. The results showed that ball milling had a significant process intensification effect on the corn straw enzymolysis. The glucose concentration was dramatically increased from 0.41 to 13.86mgmL−1 after the combined treatment of ball milling and hydrothermal. The efficient removal of lignin and hemicellulose and the enlargement of the surface area were considered to be responsible for this significant increase based on the intensive analysis on the main components and the physical–chemical properties of the raw and pretreated corn straw.