Kinetic insights into heavy crude oil upgrading in supercritical water

Heavy crude oil upgrading in a supercritical water environment is a promising technology owing to diverse advantages such as heteroatom removal, high yields of low molecular weight fractions, and inhibition of coke production. In order to increase the performance of this process, some challenges need to be overcome by researching the reaction mechanisms and developing proper numerical models. Therefore, the kinetic studies reported in the literature for hydrothermal upgrading of heavy crude oil under supercritical water conditions and their results were systematically analyzed and discussed to achieve a better understanding of the diverse approaches considered to determine the distribution of reaction products and limitations. Additionally, fundamental aspects of the kinetic models, including experimental considerations and numerical methodologies applied for kinetic parameter estimation, are reviewed to obtain representative information about the reactant system that can be subsequently integrated into reactor design models or reservoir simulations.