Lignocellulosic substrates such as, rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and corpith were pretreated following physical, chemical and biological methods. Pretreatment with NaOH (4 and 6%) released a maximum of 78% and 80% cellulose in both sugarcane baggase and rice straw whereas HCl (3%) released 70% cellulose in coir pith. The pretreated substrates were analyzed by FTIR.