•A new route for hemicellulose derived aviation fuel production was proposed.•This route follows hydrolysis/dehydration, hydrogenation, coupling and HDO steps.•The effective hydrogenation and hydrodeoxygenation catalysts were prepared.•The high yield of C8C15 alkanes and catalytic stability were obtained. This paper presents a new route for biomass derived aviation fuel synthesis by catalytic conversion in aqueous phase. Furfural with the yield of 71% was produced by acid hydrolysis of raw corncob, and hydrogenated to 2-methylfuran with obtaining the yield of 89% over Raney Ni catalyst, both of which were implemented under mild reaction conditions. The hydroxyalkylation/alkylation condensation of 2-methylfuran and furfural to C15 intermediate was conducted by using organic and inorganic acid as the catalyst under the reaction condition of 328K and atmospheric pressure. The maximal 95% of the C15 intermediate was gained when using sulfuric acid as the catalyst. 83% of liquid alkanes (C8C15) yield and more than 90% of C14/C15 selectivity were produced by hydrodeoxygenation of the C15 intermediate over 10wt%Ni/ZrO2–SiO2 catalyst. During the hydrodeoxygenation process, the catalyst showed excellent stability depended on the 110h of time-on-stream test, due to its significantly decreased carbon deposition.