Modeling Growth Kinetics of Gas Hydrate in Porous Media: Experimental Validation

Abstract

In this contribution, a rigorous kinetic model is proposed for carbon dioxide (CO2) based gas hydrate formation in porous media in the presence of a promoter. This model introduces the difference in chemical potential between the water in hydrate phase and liquid phase as the driving force. The effective surface area of porous material is proposed for the growth of CO2 hydrate, and this parameter plays a major role in making the model different with the existing kinetic models. A parameter set is identified for each of the porous materials used involving a system with various components at a reasonably high pressure. The proposed kinetic model is finally evaluated for four different porous materials (cellulose foam, silica gel, silica sand, and polyurethane foam) by comparing it with the available models with reference to the experimental data sets taken from the literature. It is investigated that this kinetic model consistently outperforms the existing models for a wide variety of conditions.