New edible additives as green inhibitors for preventing methane hydrate formation

Abstract

In this work, evaluation of two edible additives, based on gums, has been investigated on the induction time and mole consumed during methane hydrate formation. It has been reported that gum solutions such as Guar gum and Arabic gum, which are used as a food thickening agent, increase the viscosity of water. Interestingly, it has also been found that these compounds exhibit kinetic inhibition effect on methane hydrate formation. To investigate this effect, experiments have been performed in an isochoric bath high-pressure reactor with a temperature of 277.15 k, the initial pressure of 55 bar and different low concentration of inhibitors. Comparison between two types of Gums showed that Guar gum is more effective than Arabic gum. It has also been observed that inhibition efficiency is increased in the presence of special concentration lower than 0.05 wt percent. In a solution with a higher concentration than optimum, different behaviors can be observed which attributed to the physicochemical properties of Guar. Although hydrate formation may be unavoidable, even if suitable inhibitors are utilized, we are optimistic that Guar gum can be a promising candidate as novel green inhibitors to avoid pipeline blockage.