Metal salts have been proved to be good catalysts for biomass conversion process. In this study, FeCl<SUB>3</SUB> was used as the catalyst for levulinic acid (LA) production process with corn stalk as biomass substrate under relatively high temperatures. The highest LA yield was obtained at 48.73% under the condition of 230<SUP>o</SUP>C and 10min with 0.5mol/L FeCl<SUB>3</SUB> solution. A two-step consecutive homogeneous pseudo-first-order irreversible reaction model was developed to predict the yield of LA, which provided a satisfactory interpretation of the experimental results. And the kinetic model brought a deep understanding of the whole hydrolysis process.