The production of ethanol from pretreated sunflower stalks is assessed in this work. Several process configurations are compared, e.g., sequential hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF), simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF), and prehydrolysis and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (PSSF). Autohydrolysis at 220 degrees C was used as a pretreatment, after being optimized in the range 180-230 degrees C based on improved cellulose accessibility by a commercial enzyme complex. Fermentation was performed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The best result was attained by using PSFS strategy, resulting in 12 g ethanol/100 g sunflower stalks, equivalent to 72.2% of theoretical yield. Even if the differences in ethanol yields obtained from all the three process configurations are similar (70-72%), SFS and PSFS are able to produce higher ethanol productivities, along with a simpler process facilitating its industrial implementation.