• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.890-893
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• 2012

Gas hydrates are solid crystal structures formed by enclathration of gaseous guest species into 3-dimensional lattice structure of hydrogen-bonded water molecules. These compounds can be potentially used as an energy storage/transportation medium because they can hold a large amount of gas in a small volume of the solid phase. In addition, huge amount of natural gas, buried in seabeds or permafrost region in the form of the solid hydrate, is regarded as a future energy source. In this study, synthesized natural gas, whose composition is 90.0 mol% of methane, 7.0 mol% of ethane, and 3.0 mol% of propane, was used to identify formation behaviors of natural gas hydrates for the purpose of applying the gas hydrate to a storage/transportation medium of natural gas. According to the experimental results obtained by means of the solid-state NMR and high-resolution powder XRD methods, it is found that formed natural gas hydrates have crystal structure of the structure-II hydrate, and that methane occupies both small and large cages, while the others only occupy large ones. In addition, both the NMR spectroscopy and the gas chromatograph showed that there exists preferential occupation among the natural gas components during the hydrate formation. Compositional changes after the hydrate formation revealed that the preferential occupation is in order of propane, ethane, and methane (propane is the most preferential guest species when forming natural gas hydrates).

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.23 no.E1
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• pp.10-15
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• 2007

The gas hydrates are probably most sensitive to climate change since they are stable only under specific conditions of high pressure and low temperature. One of the main factors responsible for formation of gas hydrates is the saturation of the gases with water vapor. Quantitative phase equilibrium data and understanding of the roles of water component in the phase behavior of the heterogeneous water-hydrocarbon-hydrate mixture are of importance and of engineering value. In this study, the water content of ethylene gas in equilibrium with hydrate and water phases were analyzed by theoretical and experimental methods at temperatures between 274.15 up to 291.75 K and pressures between 593.99 to 8,443.18 kPa. The experimental and theoretical enhancement factors (EF) for the water content of ethylene gas and the fugacity coefficients of water and ethylene in gas phase were determined and compared with each other over the entire range of pressure carried out in this experiment. In order to get the theoretical enhancement factors, the modified Redlich-Kwong equation of state was used. The Peng-Robinson equations and modified Redlich-Kwong equations of state were used to get the fugacity coefficients for ethylene and water in the gas phase. The results predicted by both equations agree very well with the experimental values for the fugacity coefficients of the compressed ethylene gas containing small amount of water, whereas, those of water vapor do not in the ethylene rich gas at high temperature for hydrate formation locus.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.342-350
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• 2020

In this study, a hydrate inhibition system is investigated for shallow water gas fields. Mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) injection has been used as a typical method for inhibiting hydrate formation in gas fields; therefore, most offshore platforms are equipped with MEG injection and regeneration processes. A recent application of a kinetic hydrate inhibitor (KHI) has reduced the total volume of MEG injection and hence reduce the operating cost. Experiments are designed and performed to evaluate and verify the KHI performance for inhibiting hydrate formation under shallow water conditions. However, the shut-in and restart operation may require the injection and regeneration of MEG. For this operation, the MEG concentration must be optimized while considering the cost of MEG regeneration. The obtained results suggest that decreasing MEG concentration from 80 wt% to 70 wt% can reduce the life cycle cost (LCC) of MEG regeneration process by approximately 5.98 million USD owing to reduced distillation column cost. These results suggest that the hydrate inhibition system must be evaluated through well-designed experiments and process simulations involving LCC analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.6 no.1 s.17
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• pp.38-45
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• 2002

Hydrates are solid cryctallines resembling ice in appearance, which are consist of a gas molecule surrounded by a cage of water molecules. Because of containning a large amount of methane, hydrates have been considered as a future energy resource. However, the formation of hydrates in the oil and gas industries has been known as a serious problem for a long time. The formation of hydrate in pipeline is common in seasonally cold or sub-sea environments with low temperatures and high pressures. Especially, hydrate plug formation becomes a real menace to flow assurance in inadequately protected transmission lines. This study was carried out for the purpose of understanding mechanism of hydrate plugging and examining formation conditions of hydrate in high pressure gas pipeline. In this study, we measured hydrate equilibrium conditions under the various flowing conditions with the methane. The results were presented both the plugging tendency and the effect of flowing velocity.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.54-57
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• 2006

Structure H formation experiments were conducted in a semi-batch stirred vessel using methane as the small guest substance and neohexane(NH), tert-butylmethylether(TBME) and methylcyclohexane(MCH) as the large molecule guest substance (LMGS). The results indicate that the rates of gas uptake and induction times are generally dependent on the magnitude of the driving force. When tert-butyl methyl ether is used as the LMGS rapid hydrate formation, much smaller induct ion time and rapid decomposition can be achieved. Liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for the above LMGS with water have been measured under atmospheric pressure at 275.5, 283.15K, and 298.15K. It was found that TBME is the most water soluble followed by NM and MCH. The solubility of water in the non-aqueous liquid was found to increase in the following order: MCH

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.618-621
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• 2005

In this study, the phenomena of hydrate formation and inhibition were investigated according to varying the concentrations using methanol and ethylene glycol as chemical additives. The results reveal that the used additives display better inhibition effects compared to pure water by decreasing the formation temperature and the inhibition performance of methanol is superior to that of ethylene glycol. As a conclusion, the plugging phenomena of flowline in natural gas product ion. subsea and frozen field pipelines can be predicted by examining the hydrate formation and inhibition conditions. Specifically, the results of this study can be applied to the selection of the prevention criteria and method of hydrate formation.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.588-590
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• 2008

The thermal signature of nucleation process is characterized by the induction time, the degree of supercooling, and the equilibrium temperature depression. The initiation of nucleation presents stochastic characteristics. The factors that affect nucleation are mechanical impact, ionic concentration, mineral surface characters, and pore size. Hydrate-bearing sediments behave mechanically like other cemented sediments. The data set has important implications for the calibration and interpretation of geophysical measurements and downhole logs collected in gas hydrate provinces, providing particular insight for the interpretation of P- and S-wave data and resistivity logs. In addition, laboratory formation history and ensuing pore-scale spatial distribution likely have a more pronounced effect on the macroscale mechanical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.122.1-122.1
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• 2011

The motivation for this work was the potential of hydrophobic amino acids such as glycine, L-alanine, and L-valine to be applied as thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors (THIs). To confirm their capabilities in inhibiting the formation of gas hydrates, three-phase (liquid-hydrate-vapor) equilibrium conditions for carbon dioxide hydrate formation in the presence of 0.1 to 3.0 mol% amino acid solutions were determined in the range of 273.05 to 281.45 K and 14.1 to 35.2 bar. From quantitative analyses, the inhibiting effects of the amino acids (on a mole concentration basis) decreased in the following order: L-valine > L-alanine > glycine. The application of amino acids as THIs has several potential advantages over conventional methods. First, the environmentally friendly nature of amino acids as compared to conventional inhibitors means that damage to ecological systems and the environment could be minimized. Second, the loss of amino acids in recovery process would be considerably reduced because amino acids are non-volatile. Third, amino acids have great potential as a model system in which to investigate the inhibition mechanism on the molecular level, since the structure and chemical properties of amino acids are well understood.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.585-589
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• 2007

Gas hydrate is a special kind of inclusion compound that can be formed by capturing gas molecules to water lattice in high pressure and low temperature conditions. When referred to standard conditions, $1m^3$ solid hydrates contain up to $172Nm^3$ of methane gas, depending on the pressure and temperature of production, Such large volumes make natural gas hydrates can be used to store and transport natural gas. In this study, three-phase equilibrium conditions for forming methane hydrate were theoretically obtained in aqueous single electrolyte solution containing 3wt% Nacl. The results show that Nacl acts as a inhibitor, but help gases such as ethan, propane, i-butane, and n-butane reduce the hydrate formation pressure at the same temperature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.663-666
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• 2005

Gas hydrates are ice-like compounds that form at the low temperature and high pressure conditions common in shallow marine sediments at water depths greater than 300-500 m when concentrations of methane and other hydrocarbon gases exceed saturation. Estimates of the total mass of methane carbon that resides in this reservoir vary widely. While there is general agreement that gas hydrate is a significant component of the global near-surface carbon budget, there is considerable controversy about whether it has the potential to be a major source of fossil fuel in the future and whether periods of global climate change in the past can be attributed to destabilization of this reservoir. Also essentially unknown is the interaction between gas hydrate and the subsurface biosphere. ODP Leg 204 was designed to address these questions by determining the distribution, amount and rate of formation of gas hydrate within an accretionary ridge and adjacent basin and the sources of gas for forming hydrate. Additional objectives included identification of geologic proxies for past gas hydrate occurrence and calibration of remote sensing techniques to quantify the in situ amount of gas hydrate that can be used to improve estimates where no boreholes exist. Leg 204 also provided an opportunity to test several new techniques for sampling, preserving and measuring gas hydrates. During ODP Leg 204, nine sites were drilled and cored on southern Hydrate Ridge, a topographic high in the accretionary complex of the Cascadia subduction zone, located approximately 80km west of Newport, Oregon. Previous studies of southern Hydrate Ridge had documented the presence of seafloor gas vents, outcrops of massive gas hydrate, and a pinnacle' of authigenic carbonate near the summit. Deep-towed sidescan data show an approximately $300\times500m$ area of relatively high acoustic backscatter that indicates the extent of seafloor venting. Elsewhere on southern Hydrate Ridge, the seafloor is covered with low reflectivity sediment, but the presence of a regional bottom-simulating seismic reflection (BSR) suggests that gas hydrate is widespread. The sites that were drilled and cored during ODP Leg 204 can be grouped into three end-member environments basedon the seismic data. Sites 1244 through 1247 characterize the flanks of southern Hydrate Ridge. Sites 1248-1250 characterize the summit in the region of active seafloor venting. Sites 1251 and 1252 characterize the slope basin east of Hydrate Ridge, which is a region of rapid sedimentation, in contrast to the erosional environment of Hydrate Ridge. Site 1252 was located on the flank of a secondary anticline and is the only site where no BSR is observed.