In situ measurements of tetrahydrofuran hydrate and ice growth in the presence of copper surface with fringe projection: Growth kinetics and interfacial morphology

Abstract

In recent years, study on the gas hydrate in the presence of solid surfaces has attracted much interest due to the importance of hydrate deposition on the pipe wall and shutdown of these pipelines. The present work examined the in situ and online monitoring of tetrahydrofuran (THF) hydrate and ice growth on a solid surface using a high-resolution interferometry method. Michelson interferometer was applied to directly measure the thickness of ice and hydrate films using the fringe-shifting technique. Furthermore, the change in the interface morphology during hydrate growth was developed as a function of distortion in the fringe intensity distribution in terms of universal scaling laws. Universal exponent β for the growing interface of THF hydrate was experimentally studied and reported for the first time. Dynamic exponent β was derived as 0.2042, which is in general agreement with other experimental studies of local growth processes. Further, the value of the growth exponent β for the ice growth was obtained by 0.2971, which is close to the value predicted by ballistic deposition and Eden models. Based on the measured dynamic exponents, we suggest that THF hydrate and ice growth can lead to self-similar morphologies and be classified according to their dynamical behavior.