Agroindustrial and forestry residues, which are by-products of key industrial and economical activities, stand out as potential raw materials for the production of renewable fuels, chemicals and energy.The use of wastes is advantageous as their availability is not hindered by the requirement for arable land for the production of food and feed.In Brazil, the agroindustry of sugarcane, that occupies 8,567,200 ha, estimate for the 2012/13 harvest the production of 602 million tons of sugracane that corresponds to over 350 million tons of biomass residues, the crushed stalk of sugar cane (bagasse) and straw.Considering the production of biomass ethanol, the abundance of feedstock near the site of processing must be taken into account, as low-density biomass involves significant handling and transportation costs.Within this context sugar cane biomass is an obvious choice, even though 88% of bagasse has been used for energy cogeneration (19400 KJ/Kg) in the sugar-ethanol production plants and around 50% of straw is needed to keep the soil nutrients balance.Plant cell walls are the source of lignocellulose, a complex and chemically rich material also known as biomass, whose structure is chiefly represented by the physico-chemical interaction of cellulose, a linear glucose polymer, with hemicellulose, a highly branched sugar heteropolymer, with lignin, a very high molecular weight and cross-linked aromatic macromolecule.The conversion of lignocellulose to ethanol can be done biochemically after biomass hydrolysis via the "acid-based" or "enzyme-based" routes.The enzyme-based route requires biomass pre-treatment because the lignocellulosic materials are structured for strength and resistance to biological, physical and chemical attack.Although the biochemical route is advantageous due to its higher conversion efficiency, the absence of substrate loss due to chemical modifications and the use of more moderate and non-corrosive physical-chemical operating conditions, biomass degradation is a highly complex multi-enzymatic process.Irrespective of the process for the hydrolysis of the biomass polysaccharides, the residual polyaromatic hydrophobic lignin, which has the potential to release 27.000 KJ per Kg, is of foremost importance as solid fuel or as raw material for the chemical industry.Although the urgent increase in ethanol production, in the near future will largely rely on the expansion of the sugarcane plantations for the production of first-generation ethanol and on the parallel increase of the number of distilleries, it is expected that the production of ethanol from sugarcane biomass (bagasse and straw) will eventually be significant.The deployment of this technology in Brazil is also favored because the biomass ethanol production process can be annexed to the sugar/ethanol units already in place, requiring lower investments, infrastructure, logistics and energy supply.As one ton of sugar cane contains 340 kg of leaves (10% humidity) and 300 kg of bagasse (50% humidity) it would be possible to produce a surplus 36.5 liters of ethanol on top of the 80 L already produced from the sugarcane juice (sucrose) extracted from one ton of sugarcane.