Kinetics of Non-catalyzed Decomposition of D-xylose in High Temperature Liquid Water*

The kinetics of non-catalyzed decompositions of xylose and its decomposition product furfural in high temperature liquid water (HTLW) was studied for temperature from 180 to 220°C and under pressure of 10MPa. The main products of xylose decomposition were furfural and formic acid, and furfural further degraded to formic acid under HTLW condition. With the assumption of first order kinetics equation, the evaluated activation energy of xylose and furfural decomposition was 123.27kJ · mol−1 and 58.84kJ · mol−1, respectively.