Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was performed as a mode substrate to investigate its potential ability of bioconversion in a novel combined pretreatment of ball milling (BM) and/or microwave irradiation (MWI). The variation of structure characteristics of MCC before/after pretreatment were investigated, including crystallinity index (CrI), size of crystal (S-C), specific surface area (SSA) and degree of polymerization (DP). Their correlation with the rate of enzymatic hydrolysis was differentiated by an optimized equation which indicated the rate of hydrolysis was much more sensitive to CrI than SSA and DP. To achieve the same or higher glucose yield of BM for 3 h and 6 h, BM for 1 h with MWI for 20 min could save 54.8% and 77.40% energy consumption, respectively. Moreover, chemicals were not required in this process. It is concluded that the combination of BM and short time MWI is an environment-friendly, economical and effective approach to treat biomass. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.