An empty oil-palm fruit bunch (EFB) has been proposed as an alternative lignocellulose with potential to produce bio-succinate. However, studies of succinate production from EFB were sparse. Succinate concentrations and yield reported in published literatures were still low. To be more attractive, the utilization of EFB for bio-succinate at high concentrations and yields was demonstrated in this study. EFB was thermochemically pretreated employing diluted H2SO4, 121 °C for 30 min. After pretreatment, detoxification of EFB black-liquor hemicellulosic hydrolysate exploiting 0.5%(w/v) activated carbon could remove 92.04% furfural and 100% HMF derived from degraded sugars and fatty acids in EFB. Removals of 76.4% acetate and 95.80% phenols from the activated carbon-treated hydrolysate were further achieved by vacuum distillation. The 70%(v/v) detoxified hydrolysate showed the least inhibitory effect on succinate production at the level of 54.8 ± 1.5 g/L by Escherichia coli KJ12201-14 T. Alternatively, 70 g/L acid-pretreated EFB cellulosic solid was hydrolyzed with minimized cellulase and ?-glucosidase at a ratio of 15FPU:10CBU/g to release fermentable sugars at 94.02% recovery to produce 32.3 ± 1.6 g/L succinate. A combined fraction of 50%(v/v) detoxified EFB hydrolysate and 70 g/L cellulosic EFB solid was additionally utilized to produce succinate at 72.5 ± 0.8 g/L with a yield of 0.83 ± 0.02 g/g. These concentration and yield attained were highest than those of previous literatures. Our fermentation differs from published reports in the application of low inorganic-salts medium (0.9 g/L) without supplementation of any rich nutrients. These may reduce costs of medium, purification, energy consumption, and waste disposal. Our developed process may be an economically feasible option for future industrial succinate production. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.