Cellulose is one of main renewable resources on plant. It has attracted significant attention because it might be feasible to be converted to valuable chemicals. So far

varies chemical and biological technologies have been investigated to tackle the hydrolysis of cellulose

and hydrolysis of cellulose in super- and subcritical water is one of new green technologies for converting cellulose to useful chemicals with high reaction speed and conversion rate. We compare the different mechanism and product distributions for hydrolysis reaction in supercritical and subcritical water. Main reaction conditions that affect the reaction rate and product distributions are summarized including reaction temperature

pressure

time

catalyst. The combined process of super- and subcritical water for cellulose hydrolysis is also introduced.