2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is a valuable non-phthalate biomass-based plastic precursor with the potential to replace terephthalic acid (TPA) in a variety of polymer applications. In this work, the Co/Mn/Br catalyzed semi-continuous oxidation of 5hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to FDCA has been carried out at temperatures lower than those of the traditional Mid-Century (MC) process. As HMF is more susceptible to side reactions (e.g. the over-oxidation to CO and CO 2 ), lower temperatures compared to the MC process are typically used to prevent substrate burning. However, lower temperatures afford much decreased FDCA yield compared to that of TPA in p-xylene oxidation. Therefore, optimization of other operating variables such as catalyst composition, water concentration in the acetic acid solvent and pressure are essential to maximize FDCA yield. Using such optimization, we show that the FDCA yield can be enhanced to 90% at 1/0.015/0.5 molar ratio of Co, Mn and Br, 7% (v/v) water, 30 bar (CO 2 /O 2 = 1/1, mol/mol) and 180 o C, the highest value reported for HMF oxidation using Co/Mn/Br catalyst. The use of Zr(IV) as co-catalyst facilitates FDCA formation, but only at lower temperatures (120-160 °C) where the FDCA yield is compromised. These findings broaden the scope of the application of the industrial MC catalytic process for FDCA production. use) by 65%. As a result, FDCA has been identified by DOE as one of the top twelve building blocks for the future green chemicals industry. 12, 13 The oxidation of HMF to FDCA was originally carried out in presence of strong oxidants, such as nitric acid or KMnO 4 . 2,14 Apart from environmental concerns, these systems produced only modest FDCA yield owing to substrate destruction under the harsh oxidizing conditions. Alternatively, oxidation with molecular oxygen, a much milder and cleaner oxidant, has been developed, employing noble metals such as platinum, 15-20 gold 21-27 and Pd 28-33 as active catalysts.During the past five years, these heterogeneous catalytic systems have been extensively studied and shown to provide nearly quantitative FDCA yield at relatively mild reaction temperatures (65-130 °C). However, because of its low solubility in the reaction medium, FDCA tends to precipitate out in the course of reaction, which might not only deactivate the catalysts by blocking the active sites but also causes separation problems. For this reason, sodium hydroxide is added in some cases to convert the diacid product into its sodium salt, which, after removal of the catalysts, must be treated with a strong acid for recovery of FDCA. 18,23,24 More recently, several base-free processes have been reported by using hydrotalcite-supported gold nanoparticles, 25 carbon nanotube-supported gold-palladium alloy nanoparticles 34 , covalent triazine supported ruthenium 35 and magnetic Fe 3 O 4 −CoO x 36 as catalysts. Nevertheless, even in these cases, the substrate (HMF) concentration needs to be maintained very low to avoid FDCA precipitation. The potential for practical appl...