Simplified sodium chlorite pretreatment for carbohydrates retention and efficient enzymatic saccharification of silvergrass

•Effect of SC and SCA pretreatment on hydrolysis of Chinese silvergrass was compared.•SC pretreatment resulted in more lignin removal and less hemicelluloses loss.•SC pretreatment was efficient to enhance enzyme hydrolysis of Chinese silvergrass.•808.7 mg/g DM total reducing sugars yields were obtained SC pretreated substrate. In this work, a simplified and cost-effective chlorite pretreatment method to improve the hydrolysabiliy of biomass was developed. Compared to common used sodium chlorite-acetic acid (SCA) pretreatment (18.1%), sodium chlorite (SC) pretreatment resulted in less xylan loss (7.8%), thus led more carbohydrates retention. Moreover, the Chinese silvergrass pretreated by SC for 2 h achieved higher glucose yield (70.5%) than the substrate pretreated by SCA under the same pretreatment conditions did (58.7%), after 48 h enzymatic hydrolysis by cellulase. By synergistic action of cellulase and xylanase, the glucose yield of SC pretreated (12 h) samples reached to 93.5% with 808.7 mg/g DM total reducing sugars yields. In addition, without the usage of acetic acid could decrease the process cost and result in less inhibitor generation in pretreatment process.