In this work, a simplified and cost-effective chlorite pretreatment method to improve the hydrolysabiliy of biomass was developed. Compared to common used sodium chlorite-acetic acid (SCA) pretreatment (18.1%), sodium chlorite (SC) pretreatment resulted in less xylan loss (7.8%), thus led more carbohydrates retention. Moreover, the Chinese silvergrass pretreated by SC for 2 h achieved higher glucose yield (70.5%) than the substrate pretreated by SCA under the same pretreatment conditions did (58.7%), after 48 h enzymatic hydrolysis by cellulase. By synergistic action of cellulase and xylanase, the glucose yield of SC pretreated (12 h) samples reached to 93.5% with 808.7 mg/g DM total reducing sugars yields. In addition, without the usage of acetic acid could decrease the process cost and result in less inhibitor generation in pretreatment process.