We present the development and application of a two-phase stirred
reactor model for heavy oil upgrading in the presence of supercritical
water (SCW), with coupled phase-specific thermolysis reaction kinetics
and multicomponent hydrocarbon water phase equilibrium. We demonstrate
the inference of oil and water phase kinetics parameters for a compact
lumped reaction kinetics model through the application of this model to
two different sets of batch reactor experiments reported in the
literature. We infer that, though SCW can suppress the formation of
newer polynuclear aromatics (PNA) from distillate range species, it is
broadly ineffective in deterring the combination of pre-existing PNA
fragments in the oil feed. Quantification of the conversion to
distillate liquids before the onset of coke formation helps arrive at a
clearer conclusion on whether the use of SCW in the batch reactor leads
to better product outcomes for different oil feeds and operating
conditions.
Inference of Reaction Kinetics for Supercritical Water Heavy Oil Upgrading with a Two‐phase Stirred Reactor Model
