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 ∼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% (wv−1) pretreated poplar and mixed enzymes showed ∼1.5-fold higher ethanol titre as compared with SHF. The shake flask SSF with 5% (wv−1) pretreated poplar furnished 4.56 and 5.43gL−1 ethanol with Axe and mixed enzymes, respectively. Whereas, bioreactor scale-up exhibited ∼1.25-fold increase in ethanol titres (5.68, 6.75gL−1) as compared with shake flask with an yield of 0.295 (gg−1) and 0.351 (gg−1), respectively with Axe and mixed enzymes.