Since Butler and Mokrys introduced the VAPEX process in 1991, it was the subject of many interests in heavy oil researches during the last decades. In the 20th anniversary of VAPEX invention, this review paper is presented to focus on the laboratory-scale advances and the field experiences. New aspects of recent researches were reviewed briefly in seven distinct fields including: fluid mechanics, mass transfer, petrophysical characteristics, numerical simulations, phase behavior and solvent requirements, optimizations and scaling, new aspects and recent advances. The described examples illustrate the potential of VAPEX process in the rapidly growing field of heavy oil and bitumen recovery. By searching in the literatures, new ideas and optimizations together with understanding of how to control the process have been discussed. The reader is introduced with all advances in the VAPEX process, while its potentials are still attracting more and more scientist's interests in the years to come. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.