TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - BIOLOGY - Preferred Components: The whole plant comprises both edible grain and non-edible (cell wall) portions of the plant; and is selected from corn, wheat and rice, where plant cell wall rich portions and grains as the whole plants which are harvested at the same time. The biomass has a water content of 0.1-2 kg water/kg in fermenting step. The biomass is charged into the closed vessel reactor with the ammonia in an amount of 0.2-2 kg of ammonia/kg of dry biomass. In soaking step, the absorbed ratio of water to biomass is 60-233 wt.% on a dry weight basis of the biomass and where a water to ammonia ratio is 0.6:1 to 2.3:3.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - BIOTECHNOLOGY - Preferred Process: In the process, the temperature of the mixture of ammonia and the plant biomass in the closed vessel is 50-200 degrees C. The biomass in the vessel is at a preselected temperature for a preselected time and then the pressure is released explosively causing disruption of the biomass. The pretreated biomass is processed to recover ammonia from the biomass. The sugars in hydrolyzing step are separated by filtering the water containing the sugars from the biomass. The sugars are produced from the biomass by cellulase, hemicellulase and amylase during the hydrolysis, where amylase to hydrolyze starch and cellulases and hemicellulases to hydrolyze cell wall components are added in amounts to convert the carbohydrate to fermentable sugars. The disruption of the biomass in hydrolyzing step is by an Ammonia Fiber Explosion (also called Ammonia Fiber Expansion) process (AFEX). The biomass is comminuted before or after the soaking in soaking step, where soaking in water is with autoclaving, and is washed after the treatment with the ammonia in treating step.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Components: The alcohol is ethanol. The nonionic surfactant is provided with the enzymes in hydrolyzing step to increase the hydrolytic activity of the enzymes. EXAMPLE - No suitable example given.