ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on different processes for upgrading the heavy petroleum residues into valuable products. It highlights the growing demand for petroleum products every year and diminishing supplies of crude oil. It enlists the essential properties of these residues and provides the much needed selection criteria for adopting an upgradation technique. It discusses various upgradation techniques, that is, visbreaking, gasification, delayed coking, hydrocracking, and so on, and recent advancements that have been incorporated into them. It examines the merits and demerits of these techniques and compares them. It gives an overview of the biotechnological processes for the residue utilization.
