With the aim to develop an ecologically viable catalytic pathway for furfural production without the use of inorganic acids, H3PW12O40, Amberlyst-5 and NKC-9 (macroporous styrene-based sulfonic acid resin) were used as catalysts for producing furfural from xylose, xylan and lignocellulosic biomass in [BMIM]Cl under microwave irradiation at atmospheric pressure. A surprisingly high furfural yield of 93.7% from xylan was obtained by H3PW12O40 at 160 C in 10 min. The degradation of furfural affected by single addition of [BMIM]Cl and solid acids was also investigated. The IL could be easily recycled and reused with stable solvent capacity for multiple runs (5x) after the product furfural was extracted with ethyl acetate. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.