Bioethanol was produced from poplar leafy biomass rich in hemicelluloses content involving recombinant Clostridium thermocellum hemicellulases and pentose sugar utilizing Candida shehatae. FT-IR analysis revealed effective AFEX pretreatment of poplar leaves. Repetitive batch strategy yielded similar to 1.5-fold rise in cell biomass and specific activity of both, acetylxylanesterase (Axe) and GH43 hemicellulase. TLC and HPAEC exhibited xylose and arabinose release from hydrolyzed biomass. SSF trial with 1% (w v (1)) pretreated poplar and mixed enzymes showed similar to 1.5-fold higher ethanol titre as compared with SHF. The shake flask SSF with 5% (w v (1)) pretreated poplar furnished 4.56 and 5.43 g L (1) ethanol with Axe and mixed enzymes, respectively. Whereas, bioreactor scale-up exhibited similar to 1.25-fold increase in ethanol titres (5.68, 6.75 g L (1)) as compared with shake flask with an yield of 0.295 (g g (1)) and 0.351 (g g (1)), respectively with Axe and mixed enzymes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.