Biofuel production from lignocellulosic biomass through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising direction. This study characterized the products and investigated the elemental migration during the HTL of cornstalk at seven different operation temperatures (210-375 degrees C). The biocrude oil yield significantly increased from 7.04% (210 degrees C) to 23.32% (290 degrees C) as the temperature increased, and decreased to 21.07% when further increased to 375 degrees C. A carbon recovery of 11.03-38.69%, and a hydrogen recovery of 7.77-25.61% were achieved in the biocrude oil. Hydrogen (27.87-70.94%) and nitrogen (74.56-81.76%) were effectively recovered in the aqueous phase. GC-MS, HPLC, TGA and FT-IR analysis indicated that major organic compounds in the biocrude oil were interestingly similar between 210 degrees C and 270 degrees C. The identified compounds included hydrocarbons, esters and carboxylic acid. The calculative yields of biocrude, hydrogen, methane and biochar reached 7.04-23.32, 0.07-0.29, 7.12-12.08 and 3.01-22.42 t/100 t cornstalks, respectively. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.