Effective dilute acid hydrolysis of dairy manure which contains roughly 12% hemicellulose on a dry matter basis can produce a variety of mono-sugars such as arabinose, xylose and galactose, as well as to further benefit utilization of cellulose in the manure. To enhance the effectiveness of this dilute acid hydrolysis, the effect of manure nitrogen content was studied because some reactions such as the browning reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars and acid-base reactions involving ammonia and acid interfere with the hydrolysis. Two dairy manure samples were used to study this nitrogen effect; the original manure and the pretreated manure derived from a solid/liquid separation pretreatment. The pretreated. manure had a total nitrogen content of 1.3% dry matter (DM) while the original dairy manure had twice that amount with a total nitrogen content of 2.6% DM. Results found that the optimal conditions for hydrolysis of manure hemicellulose were 2 h reaction time, 1% sulfuric acid concentration, 135 degreesC, and 10% sample concentration using the pretreated dairy manure as raw material. Under these conditions the corresponding sugar yield from hemicellulose was 111% and sugar concentration in the solution reached 16.5 g/l. At the same time, the hydrolyzed solid had 43% DM of cellulose, which was much higher than both the original manure containing 22% and the pretreated manure with 32%. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.