Mechanical size reduction is considered as a primordial step of current and future lignocellulosic biorefinery. In this sense, it is of high interest to understand who are the biochemical and structural features of the lignocellulosic biomass, which affect the Specific Energy Requirement (SER), and in consequence the cost of mechanical size reduction processes. First, it was shown that the initial moisture content of the lignocellulosic biomass affect the SER and the final particle size distribution. The highest the moisture content gives raise the highest SER. Then, at fixed initial moisture content (approximate to 7% DW), structural and biochemical features of lignocellulosic biomass that can affect the SER were determined. It was noticed that both arabinose/xylose ratio and accessible surface area lead to increasing the SER. On the contrary, the content of cellulose, lignin, crystallinity and p-coumaric acids links were found to have a positive effect on the reduction of the SER. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.