NOVELTY - Solubilizing and/or hydrolyzing (M1) lignocellulosic material involves contacting the lignocellulosic material with an aqueous solution of a bromine salt. The bromine salt is present in the solution at a concentration of 40-80 wt.% of the solution at temperature of 100-160 degrees C.    USE - For solubilizing and/or hydrolyzing lignocellulosic material, which is useful for obtaining sugars and production of ethanol by fermentation (claimed).    ADVANTAGE - The process is efficient and low-cost process which provides hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials, particularly wood-based materials that are hard to hydrolyze, predominantly to monosaccharides, with minimal loss to undesired coproducts and preferably without the need for pretreatment of lignocellulosic materials. The present process hydrolyzes real lignocellulose biomass such as corn stover, switchgrass, waste paper, hardwood, and softwood, without the need for any prior pretreatment. The process is applied to lignocellulosic materials without the need for extensive mechanical and/or chemical pretreatment. The process saccharifies cellulose and hemicellulose of lignocellulosic materials in a single step and provides residual lignin fractionated from cellulose and hemicellulose. The process provides overall sugar yield of both hexoses and pentoses of greater than 80% (preferably of greater than or equal to 90%). The process is directly saccharify lignocellulose and allows resultant sugars to be separated from residual lignin. The salts employed in the process are recycled. The process provides improvements in cost and energy efficiency and good scalability.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for the following:    (1) obtaining (M2) sugars from lignocellulosic materials involving solubilizing and/or hydrolyzing lignocellulosic material obtained by using the method (M1) to obtain a salt-sugar product mixture and separating the salt from the sugar to obtain a sugar product containing less than 10 wt.% of the salt; and    (2) production of (M3) ethanol by fermentation which employs the hydrolysis product of the method (M1) as a feedstock.