The production of biofuels and value-added biochemicals from renewable abundant non-food lignocellulosic biomass would bring benefits. Succinic acid, derived from fermentation of agricultural carbohydrates, has a specialty chemical market in industries producing food and pharmaceutical products, surfactants and detergents, green solvents and biodegradable plastics, and ingredients to stimulate animal and plant growth. The aim of this work is to evaluate the fractionation of hard wood by the process sequence based on controlled steam explosion at high temperature followed by alkaline and chlorine pretreatment. Also, we reported, the succinic acid production from pretreated hardwood hydrolysate by Actinobacillus succinogenes CGMCC 1593. The steam explosion-chemical pretreatment is a more effective wood pretreatment technique than the physical pretreatment by the pretreatment process. Among the two stage pretreatments examined, the steam explosion-KOH pretreatment was the most effective one in improving enzymatic hydrolysis of the untreated hardwood, with glucose recovery of 36 g per 100 g raw material. The concentration and yield of succinic acid in SHF process at 48 h could reach 16.7 g L-1 and 77.5%, respectively. Maximum succinic acid yield (16.1 g L-1 and 77.5%) was obtained when the two stage pretreatment was performed at steam explosion - 3% KOH. This study showed a promising combined method for hardwood pretreatment using steam explosion and alkaline.