Combining experiment and theory to elucidate the role of supercritical water in sulfide decomposition.

The cleavage of C-S linkages plays a key role in fuel processing and organic geochemistry. Water is known to affect these processes, and several hypotheses have been proposed, but the mechanism has been elusive. Here we use both experiment and theory to demonstrate that supercritical water reacts with intermediates formed during alkyl sulfide decomposition.