Lignin represents one of the main obstacles to using lignocellulosic materials in biotechnological applications based on
lignocellulosic biomass (Reyes et al., 1998). The purpose of pretreatment is to remove part of the lignin and hemicellulose, reduce cellulose crystallinity and enhance porosity (Sun and Cheng, 2002; Zhang and Lynd, 2004). Table 1 presents the experimentally determined composition of sugar cane bagasse and partially delignified cellulignin obtained in our study. The sum of all components (95.5±4.3% and 97.0±3.4% for sugar cane bagasse and cellulignin, respectively) was close to 100%, taking into account experimental error and extractives that were partially unaccounted for.