Upgrading of heavy oil in supercritical
water (SCW) was analyzed
by a comprehensive analysis of GC, GC–MS, NMR, and SEM–EDX
with the aid of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) as a complementary
technical analysis. The significant changes in the physical properties
and chemical compositions reveal the effectiveness of heavy oil upgrading
by SCW. Especially, changes of intensities of conventional EPR signals
from free radicals (FRs) and paramagnetic vanadyl complexes (VO2+) with SCW treatment were noticed, and they were explained,
respectively, to understand sulfur removal mechanism (by FR intensity
and environment destruction) and metal removal mechanism (by VO2+ complexes’ transformation). For the first time, it
was shown that electronic relaxation times extracted from the pulsed
EPR measurements can serve as sensitive parameters of SCW treatment.
The results confirm that EPR can be used as a complementary tool for
analyzing heavy oil upgrading in SCW, even for the online monitoring
of oilfield upgrading.