Many countries in the world aim to achieve sustainable development goals by 2030 following ambitious climate change mitigation, and thus, the concept of sustainable biorefinery has attracted immense research and development around the world. The concept of the biorefinery is centrally based on the conversion of biomass into biofuels and value-added products. Nevertheless, lowering the recalcitrance of the lignocellulosic matrix in a cost-effective and environmentally benign manner is a crucial pretreatment step. Different pretreatment methods have been categorized as physical, chemical, biological, physicochemical, and combined. Recently, some novel ionic liquids have also emerged as promising sustainable pretreatment solutions for use of lignocellulosic waste on a large scale. This review briefly presents recent findings on the pretreatment for the conversion of lignocellulosic materials into fuel and value-added products. © 2019