Modeling Phase Behavior of Semi-Clathrate Hydrates of CO2, CH4, and N2 in Aqueous Solution of Tetra-n-butyl Ammonium Fluoride

Abstract

Abstract Semi-clathrate hydrates are members of the class of clathrate compounds. In comparison with clathrate hydrates, where the networks are formed only by H2O molecules, the networks of semi-clathrate hydrates are formed by mixtures of H2O and quaternary ammonium salts (QASs). The addition of QASs to the solution enables to improve the formation of semi-clathrate hydrates at much milder conditions comparing to clathrate hydrates. In this work, we study the phase equilibria of semi-clathrate hydrates of CH4, CO2, and N2 gas in an aqueous solution of tetra-n-butyl ammonium fluoride (TBAF). An extension of the Chen–Guo model is proposed as a thermodynamic model. The Peng–Robinson equation of state (PREOS) was applied to calculate the fugacity of the gas phase and in order to determine the water activity in the presence of TBAF, a correlation between the system temperature, the TBAF mass fraction, and the nature of the guest molecules has been used. These equations were solved simultaneously and through optimizing tuning parameters via the Nelder–Mead simplex algorithm. The results are compared to experimental data and good agreement is observed.