In this study, sugarcane bagasse was pretreated by six ionic liquids (ILs) using a bagasse/IL ratio of 1:20 (wt%). The solubilization of bagasse in the ILs was followed by water precipitation. On using 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate [Emim] [Ac] at 120°C for 120min, 20.7% of the bagasse components remained dissolved and enzymatic saccharification experiments resulted on 80% glucose yield within 6h, which evolved to over 90% within 24h. Moreover, FE-SEM analysis of the precipitated material indicated a drastic lignin extraction and the exposure of nanoscopic cellulose microfibrils with widths of less than 100nm. The specific surface area (SSA) of the pretreated bagasse (131.84m 2 /g) was found to be 100 times that of untreated bagasse. The ability of [Emim] [Ac] to simultaneously increase the SSA and to decrease the biomass crystallinity is responsible for the improved bagasse enzymatic saccharification rates and yields obtained in this work.