This study presented a new approach to produce furfural from steam explosion liquor of rice straw (SELRS) by solid acid catalysts (HZSM-5). The maximum furfural yield was 310 g kg(-1) under the optimum conditions: HZSM-5 addition 60 g kg(-1) sugar, reaction temperature 160 degrees C, extraction steam flow rate 2.5 cm(3) min(-1) and total sugar concentration 61.4 kg m(-3). HZSM-5 catalysts were reused for 3 runs and the catalytic activity recovered 88% after regeneration through calcination. To improve furfural production efficiency, polymerization inhibitor was added to the reaction system under the optimum conditions. As a result, furfural yield (375 g kg(-1)) was increased by 21% with the addition of 15 g kg(-1) of 4-Methoxyphenol, which showed a superior effect than that of p-tert-Butylcatechol (352 g kg(-1) of furfural yield) with the same additive amount. Therefore, HZSM-5 combined with 4-Methoxyphenol obviously improved the furfural conversion performance from SELRS. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.