Hemicellulose in corn straw is a group of complex heteropolysaccharides which are composed of different sugar units

including mannans

xylans

arabinans and galactans. This study developed a simple and practical process for production of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) using hemicellulose that was extracted from corn straw. In the hemicellulose degradation process HCOOH/HCOONa was used as buffer solution

and the optimum conditions for maximum HMF yield were explored. Various extraction conditions including NaOH concentration

reaction time

temperature

solid-to-liquid ratio and precipitant were tested for hemicellulose obtaining

giving the optimum condition of 55℃

4 h

solid-to-liquid ratio of 1:10

1.5 mol·L

-1

NaOH solution and ethanol as precipitant with the yield of 34.16%. Dehydration of hemicellulose under HCOOH/HCOONa buffer solution process

using solution medium of pH=0.8 hydrolyzed hemicellulose in corn straw at 190℃ after 190 min and 82% of HMF yield was achieved.