With increasing energy demand, depletion of fossil fuels as wellas concerns over climate change, the utilization of renewable lig-nocellulosic biomass for the production of fuels, chemicals andmaterials has become a global research focus. Among them, theproduction of cellulosic ethanol through biological route has gainedextensive interest and will play a crucial role in our future energyportfolio (Cheng et al., 2015; Souza et al., 2014). This route is contin-gent on the industrial hydrolysis of biomass polysaccharide fractionto fermentable sugars due to the intrinsic recalcitrance of biomassthat limit the accessibility of cellulase to their cellulose substrates(Chundawat et al., 2011; Langan et al., 2014). Currently, efficientdeconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugarsdepends largely on the development of advanced biomass pretreat-ment technologies