Kraft green liquor (GL) mainly consisting of sodium carbonate and sodium sulfide are available from Kraft mills. Kraft GL combined with ethanol (Kraft GL-ethanol) was chosen to pretreat sugarcane bagasse for effective enzymatic hydrolysis. And the obtained lignins and cellulose rich fractions were characterized in detail. The highest lignin removal of 95.3\% was observed at a pretreatment temperature of 160 degrees C, and approximately 70.8\% of lignin was removed at the pretreatment temperature of 100 degrees C. The lignin removal with Kraft GL-ethanol pretreatment was higher than that with Soda GL-ethanol pretreatment at 140 degrees C. An FT-IR study of the isolated lignins showed that an increase in pretreatment temperature resulted in the cleavage of ester bonds. GPC results revealed that the molecular weight decreased with increasing pretreatment temperature. The 2D HSQC NMR data showed that the cleavage of beta-O-4 became more severe with increasing pretreatment temperature from 80 to 160 degrees C. Fewer condensation reactions between lignin units occurred when the pretreatment temperature was above 100 degrees C. Moreover, the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of sugarcane bagasse increasing with increasing pretreatment temperature. The glucose yield reached 65.13\% at a pretreatment temperature of 80 degrees C. The maximum glucose yield (98.26\%) of sugarcane bagasse after 72 h of enzymatic hydrolysis was achieved at a pretreatment temperature of 160 degrees C. When lignin content was low in samples after pretreatment at 140-160 degrees C, the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of the substrate increased because the number of crystalline cellulose regions decreased. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the surfaces of Kraft GL-ethanol pretreated sugarcane bagasse were separated into individual fibers. In addition, contact angle analysis showed that the Kraft GL-ethanol pretreated sugarcane bagasse was more hydrophilic than untreated sugarcane bagasse. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.