Furanic compounds such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) can be obtained from sugars and have the potential to serve as substitutes of petroleum derived building blocks in the production of fuels and chemicals. In this work, we propose a process for the production of HMF from fructose based on extractive-reaction and formulate an optimization problem in order to find the operating conditions that minimize its cost of production. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.