Volume 4: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part III

Studying the Kinetics of Mixed CH4-THF Hydrate Formation at Ambient Temperature Gaurav Bhattacharjee , Hari Prakash Veluswamy , Rajnish Kumar and Praveen Linga*

Abstract

Mixed CH4-THF hydrate formation has been investigated at ambient temperature (298 K) with focus on advancing the commercial feasibility of solidified natural gas (SNG) technology for natural gas storage. In addition to freshwater, direct use of seawater has also been studied for hydrate formation. There is quite a gulf between the two systems at the chosen experimental temperature of 298 K with final gas uptake for the freshwater system being more than double that of its seawater counterpart while the kinetics of hydrate formation also shows a marked difference, in favor of freshwater. To improve the kinetics of hydrate formation from seawater, possible use of two kinetic promoters, hydrophilic amino acid L-Arginine and hydrophobic amino acid L-Tryptophan has been proposed. Both kinetic promoters used enhance the kinetics of hydrate formation from seawater and while the final gas uptake is roughly equivalent for the systems without any promoter and with hydrophobic L-Tryptophan, presence of hydrophilic amino acid L-Arginine increases the final gas uptake obtained for seawater as well.

Keywords Solidified Natural Gas, Gas Hydrate, Gas Storage, Kinetics, Amino Acids