Reaction Engineering of Biomass and Hydrocarbons in Supercritical Water

Upgrading of biomass and hydrocarbon resources in near and supercritical water has been an active topic in both university and industry labs for the past decade. Here, we define near and supercritical water as water held in the liquid phase but at temperatures greater than its normal boiling point. We invite submissions on original research or reviews on the state of the art in the field that includes using near or supercritical water for: conversion of algae hydrocarbons to fuels and chemicals; heteroatom removal and upgrading of petroleum, bitumen, and other fossil resources; gasification of biomass and wastes; hydrothermal liquefaction; aqueous phase processing; etc. Talks that focus on using other supercritical fluids should consider existing sessions on “Reactions in Near and Supercritical Fluids”, with the exception of near and supercritical alchohols as these solvents have critical properties comparable to water and have been recently used to achieve similar results. Talks describing new methods or data are invited, either with a computational or experimental emphasis.