Over the last decade, many researchers have examined the potential of supercritical water (SCW) treatment as a heavy crude upgrading process. Some researchers have suggested that SCW may have a radical capping effect, although this is controversial4. If SCW can provide hydrogen to products, SCW upgrading may be an effective desulfurization process as a pretreatment for a catalytic hydrodesulfurization process. The radical capping of SCW can especially affect the sulfur distribution in products because sulfide bonding of petroleum compounds is a major starting point of radical initiation reactions. In this work, to evaluate the possibility of desulfurization using SCW, we compared the effects of SCW on the desulfurization of oil sand bitumen having high sulfur content with those of high-pressure nitrogen.
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