Chlorine dioxide (ClO2) is a bleaching reagent used in paper industry. Two different types of pretreatment methods were investigated incorporating ClO2 as a secondary reagent: (a) alkaline followed by ClO2 treatment; (b) dilute-sulfuric acid followed ClO2 treatment. In these methods, ClO2 treatment has shown little effect on delignification. Scheme-a has shown a significant improvement in enzymatic digestibility of glucan far above that treated by ammonia alone. On the contrary, dilute-acid followed by ClO2 treatment has shown negative effect on the enzymatic hydrolysis. The main factors affecting the enzymatic hydrolysis are the changes of the chemical structure of lignin and its distribution on the biomass surface. ClO2 treatment significantly increases the carboxylic acid content and reduces phenolic groups of lignin, affecting hydrophobicity of lignin and the H-bond induced association between the enzyme and lignin. This collectively led to reduction of unproductive binding of enzyme with lignin, consequently increasing the digestibility.