Abstract: Production of levulinic acid catalyzed by ferric chloride supported on activated carbon was studied. The response surface method, a useful tool for multi-factor process optimization, was used through Box-Beknhen experiment design. The selected four factors were reaction temperature, reaction time, dose of catalyst and concentration of sucrose. The optimized experiment conditions were: reaction temperature 218℃, reaction time 28min, dose of catalyst 0.05 mol/L, concentration of sucrose 0.3 mol/L. The maximum levulinic acid production reached 47.33% under the optimized experiment conditions.