In the present work ionic liquid has been used for the regeneration of cellulose from used writing paper precursor. The ionic liquid regenerated cellulose was characterized by TGA, FTIR and SEM analysis and the regenerated material was found to exhibit more homogeneous microstructure. The activation energy for the thermal degradation of the regenerated cellulose has been found to be less than the precursor (used paper) as determined by Friedman kinetic approach. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.