A pretreatment was developed to remove nitrogen from ramie residue and cotton stalk to eliminate potential nitrogen pollutants in biomass energy production. In the pretreatment, straw was treated with acid wastewater from bioleaching for 3 h followed by Clostridium thermocellum incubation for 2 h. Most nitrogen was removed from biomass waste and the major was that in protein. Pyrolysis process revealed most hemicellulose was removed and the kinetics fitted the first-order equation well. Apparent activation energy of ramie residue increased a little and mass loss became concentrated. Ultimate analysis and pyrolysis analysis revealed the treatment did not weaken the application value of biomass in energy production. Replacing acid wastewater with sulphuric acid, a higher nitrogen removal could be achieved; however, activation energy increased sharply. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.