in this study, the aqueous conversion of whole fruit shell to hydrogen rich gas under low temperature, but supercritical conditions was investigated. The yields of total extraction products from supercritical water extraction increase with increasing temperature for all runs. The yields of hydrogen (YHs) increase with increasing temperature and pressure for all runs and the increase of YHs with pressure are higher than those with temperature. Compared with other biomass thermochemical processes such as pyrolysis, gasification, air gasification or steam gasification, the supercritical water gasification can directly deal with the wet biomass without drying, and have high gasification efficiency at lower temperature. (C) 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.