BACKGROUND: Catalytic upgrading of fermentation-derived succinic acid or its derivates (succinic acid esters and succinic anhydride) to value added chemicals has received great attention recently. The aim of this work is to provide a process for the production of tetrahydrofuran from succinic acid esters. RESULTS: The hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived diethyl succinate was investigated over CuO-ZnO and CuO-ZnO/solid acid (HY, HZSM-5, SAPO-11 and Al2O3) catalysts in a fixed-bed reactor. Over CuO-ZnO, gamma-butyrolactone and 1,4-butanediol can be selectively produced under appropriate reaction conditions, while the selectivity of tetrahydrofuran is relatively low due to the weak acidity of CuO-ZnO. Over CuO-ZnO/HZSM, both the formed 1,4-butanediol and ethanol can be further converted to tetrahydrofuran and diethyl ether, while tetrahydrofuran is selectively produced over CuO-ZnO/HY. CuO-ZnO/Al2O3 and CuO-ZnO/SAPO exhibit slight improvements in terms of selectivity to tetrahydrofuran when compared with CuO-ZnO. CONCLUSION: CuO-ZnO/HY is an appropriate catalyst to produce tetrahydrofuran from biomass-derived diethyl succinate with high activity, selectivity and stability. Furthermore, Bronsted acid sites with appropriate acid strength are responsible for the selective formation of tetrahydrofuran under the applied reaction conditions. (C) 2010 Society of Chemical Industry