Hydrothermal purification process

A process for reducing contaminants contained in a contaminated feedstock comprising:

• mixing the contaminated feedstock with water and at least one of metal scavengers or reactants, wherein the metal scavengers or reactants comprise acid or salt solutions, or a combination of acid and salt solutions, to form a feedstock-water-reactant mixture;
• feeding the feedstock-water-reactant mixture under pressure into a hydrothermal purification reactor, wherein the mixture is subject to heat, pressure, and turbulent flow conditions at a Reynolds number of at least 2000;
• maintaining the temperature, pressure, and turbulent flow conditions of the feedstock-water-reactant mixture in a manner that causes rapid reaction of the inorganic contaminants with the at least one of the metal scavengers or reactants to form inorganic salts that partition into an aqueous phase and maintaining the temperature, pressure, and turbulent flow conditions of the feedstock-water-reactant mixture for a space time of less than or up to 10 seconds to less than 10 minutes and in a manner that prevents the organic portion of the feedstock in the mixture from undergoing thermal cracking of carbon-carbon bonds into lower molecular weight fragments, prevents the compounds in the organic fraction from polymerizing, and/or prevent the compounds in the organic fraction from isomerizing from the “cis-” isomer to the “trans-” isomer to form a hydrothermal reactor effluent,
• wherein the space time of the feedstock-water-reactant mixture in the hydrothermal purification reactor at an operating pressure within a range from 100 psig to 2,500 psig and an operating temperature within a range from 150° C. to 350° C., is within a range of approximately from 10 seconds to 5 minutes;
• and
• separating the hydrothermal reactor effluent into the aqueous phase containing salts of the inorganic contaminants and an organic phase that contains a lower concentration of inorganic contaminants than the contaminated feedstock.