Hydrate Formation Rate Research Articles

Numerical simulation of microscopic CO2 hydrate formation in sandy sediment with two-phase flow

This study provides a numerical simulation method of CO2 hydrate formation within microscopic porous media with the presence of two-phase flow of liquid CO2 and water. The influence of the hydrate formation rate and the two-phase flow speed on permeability reduction were studied numerically. The results showed that, when the hydrate saturation is small, say 0.2 or less, whatever the water shape is, grain-coating hydrate is dominant and the difference in flow speed hardly affect permeability reduction. When the hydrate saturation is about 0.3 or more, the larger the ratio of the flow speed to the hydrate formation rate, the larger the solid-phase surface area and the smaller the pore size are: that is, the smaller the permeability is. As the hydrate grows further, most of the water turns into hydrate and the difference in effective permeability due to the flow speed becomes noticeable as the water shape changes over time. It is thought that, at a high flow speeds, the flow purges more water from sand surfaces and places the purged water in the wake of sand grains, resulting in more pore-filling hydrate rather than the grain-coating type. However, such a difference is not so large and it seems that the existing mathematical models of permeability reduction due to hydrate formation can be applied even when there is two-phase flow.

Insights into the synergistic effects of metal particles (Ag, Cu, and Fe) and urea on CO2 clathrate hydrate growth using molecular dynamics simulations

A variety of industrial applications of hydrate-based CO2 capture and utilization technologies are hindered by the complex and slow hydrate formation; however, improving CO2 hydrate formation kinetics can be facilitated by adding the accelerators (promoters). In this regard, understanding the promotion mechanisms of these compounds on the hydrate formation at the molecular level would assist in either establishing feasible processes or finding more efficient promoters. In this work, CO2 hydrate growth and formation in the presence of hybrid metal particles (Ag, Cu, and Fe) and urea molecule has been explored through molecular dynamics (MD) simulation at below and above water freezing point. Different criteria were used to characterize and analyse the CO2 hydrate formation kinetics. The outcomes reveal that, although the mixture of Cu, Ag, and Fe metal particles has positive effects on the rate of hydrate formation above the ice point, the mixture of Cu, Fe, and urea (without the inclusion of Ag) in comparison with the other investigated systems, possesses the highest promotion effect on the clathrate hydrate growth rate. This combination of metal particles creates various functions in the solution phase adjacent to the hydrate surface. The metal particles and urea could promote the formation of new cages at the hydrate-solution boundary by decreasing the heat and mass transport resistances of CO2 in water. In addition, the improvement of combined metal particles and urea under water freezing was found to be less substantial. However, the behaviours of combined metal particles without urea at different thermodynamic conditions are quite dissimilar.

Role of different types of water in bentonite clay on hydrate formation and decomposition

The equilibrium and kinetic of hydrate in sediments can be affected by the presence of external components like bentonite with a relatively large surface area. To investigate the hydrate formation and decomposition behaviors in bentonite clay, the experiments of methane hydrate formation and decomposition using the multi-step decomposition method in bentonite with different water contents of 20%, 40% and 60% (mass) were carried out. The contents of bound, capillary and gravity water in bentonite clay and their roles during hydrate formation and decomposition were analyzed. In bentonite with water content of 20% (mass), the hydrate formation rate keeps fast during the whole formation process, and the final gas consumption under different initial formation pressures is similar. In bentonite with the water contents of 40% and 60% (mass), the hydrate formation rate declines significantly at the later stage of the hydrate formation. The final gas consumption of bentonite with the water contents of 40% and 60% (mass) is significantly higher than that with the water content of 20% (mass). During the decomposition process, the stable pressure increases with the decrease of the water content. Hydrate mainly forms in free water in bentonite clay. In bentonite clay with the water contents of 20% and 40% (mass), the hydrate forms in capillary water. In bentonite clay with the water content of 60% (mass), the hydrate forms both in capillary water and gravity water. The bound water of dry bentonite clay is about 3.93% (mass) and the content of capillary water ranges from 42.37% to 48.21% (mass) of the dry bentonite clay.

Analysis of coupled heat & mass transfer during gas hydrate formation in bubble column reactors

Gas hydrates have promising applications in gas separation, carbon capture, desalination and gas storage. Although there exist several studies on modeling hydrate growth, analysis of the coupled role of heat and mass transfer on hydrate formation has been largely neglected. Presently, we develop a fundamentals-based simulations framework which accounts for mass transfer, heat transfer and various interfacial phenomena associated with gas hydrate formation in a bubble column reactor. We model CO2 separation from syngas via CO2 hydrate formation and validate against experiments from another study. This model is used to quantify the impact of various operating parameters (gas flow rate, bubble size, reactor pressure, inlet gas temperature, reactor geometry) on hydrate formation rate and gas-to-hydrate conversion factor. Results provide several insights related to the intricate transport phenomena that underlie hydrate formation. Firstly, we highlight the adverse impact of inadequate heat dissipation on hydrate formation rate and conversion factor. This is particularly important for high gas flow rates, wherein high hydrate formation rate triggers substantial temperature rise. Enhancing thermal conductivity of hydrate forming media can significantly enhance formation, with the conversion factor seen to double. Secondly, simulations show that bubbles < 100 μm diameter are essential to realize high growth rates. Thirdly, increasing reactor pressure can significantly improve the maximum theoretical separation efficiency for CO2 to > 90 %. Fourthly, precooling the inlet gas enhances hydrate formation rates by upto 5 %. Overall, this work outlines a novel approach to modeling hydrate formation and provides a tool for process optimization.

Experimental study of CO2 hydrate formation in porous media with different particle sizes

AbstractTo investigate the effect of the particle size of porous media on CO2 hydrate formation, the formation experiments of CO2 hydrate in porous media with three particle sizes were performed. Three kinds of porous media with mean particle diameters of 2.30 μm (clay level), 5.54 μm (silty sand level), and 229.90 μm (fine sand level) were used in the experiments. In the experiments, the formation temperature range was 277.15–281.15 K and the initial formation pressure range was 3.4–4.8 MPa. The final gas consumption increases with the increase in the initial pressure and the decrease in the formation temperature. The hydrate formation at the initial formation pressure of 4.8 MPa in 229.90 μm porous media is much slower than that at the lower formation pressure and displays multistage. In the experiments with different formation temperatures, the gas consumption rate at the temperature of 279.15 K is the lowest. In 2.30 and 5.54 μm porous media, the hydrate formation rates are similar and faster than those in 229.90 μm porous media. The particle size of the porous media does not affect the final gas consumption. The gas consumption rate per mol of water and the final water conversion increase with the decrease in the water content. The induction time in 5.54 μm porous media is longer than that in 2.30 and 229.90 μm porous media, and the presence of NaCl significantly increases the induction time and decreases the final conversion of water to hydrate.

The Effect of Nonionic Surfactants on the Kinetics of Methane Hydrate Formation in Multiphase System

Gas hydrate inhibitors have proven to be the most feasible approach to controlling hydrate formation in flow assurance operational facilities. Due to the unsatisfactory performance of the traditional inhibitors, novel effective inhibitors are needed to replace the existing ones for safe operations within constrained budgets. This work presents experimental and modeling studies on the effects of nonionic surfactants as kinetic hydrate inhibitors. The kinetic methane hydrate inhibition impact of Tween-20, Tween-40, Tween-80, Span-20, Span-40, and Span-80 solutions was tested in a 1:1 mixture of a water and oil multiphase system at a concentration of 1.0% (v/v) and 2.0% (v/v), using a high-pressure autoclave cell at 8.70 MPa and 274.15 K. The results showed that Tween-80 effectively delays the hydrate nucleation time at 2.5% (v/v) by 868.1% compared to the blank sample. Tween-80 is more effective than PVP (a commercial kinetic hydrate inhibitor) in delaying the hydrate nucleation time. The adopted models could predict the methane hydrate induction time and rate of hydrate formation in an acceptable range with an APE of less than 6%. The findings in this study are useful for safely transporting hydrocarbons in multiphase oil systems with fewer hydrate plug threats.

Inhibition of N-vinylpyrrolidone on hydrate in high-pressure flow system under the synergistic effect of ether compounds

Through the experimental tests as performed on a high-pressure flow loop test bench, the synergistic effect of diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (DEGEE), propylene glycol methyl ether (PM), and ethylene glycol phenyl ether (EPH) on the inhibition of inhibitors on hydrate growth was explored under the same initial temperature (285.15 K), pressure (5.0 MPa) and flow rate (230 L/h). The average particle size, relative inhibition performance factor (RIP), and initial formation rate of methane hydrate in the system with a single kinetic inhibitor (or monoalcohol ether synergistic agent) were obtained by experiments, and compared with the relevant parameters in the system with a kinetic inhibitor and a synergistic agent. The experimental results show that the presence of PVP in the system increases the average particle size, which may be due to the adsorption of kinetic inhibitors on hydrate crystals. When the relative inhibition performance factor was used as the index, all the three kinds of synergistic agents promoted the inhibition performance of PVP. DEGEE had the best promotion effect, EPH was the weaker, and PM was the weakest. The synergistic agents in the composite system had little effect on the initial formation rate of hydrate. The addition of kinetic inhibitors and synergistic agents would transform the hydrate formation medium from the wall to the gas–water interface, while the presence of the oil phase in the system significantly weakened the inhibition performance in the kinetic inhibitor-synergist system. The results and theories obtained in this experiment can provide a theoretical basis for the flow guarantee in actual pipelines.

Formation mechanism of heterogeneous hydrate-bearing sediments

Lack of knowledge on the formation mechanism of heterogeneous hydrate-bearing sediments (HBS) leads to difficulties of forming nature-like HBS, further resulting in unknown implications of HBS heterogeneity to the hydrate field exploitation. This work aims to reveal the unaddressed formation mechanism of heterogeneous HBS by theoretical hypothesis, model derivation, and experimental verification. The hypothesis that the water migration (including water diffusion and transportation) during hydrate formation plays a significant role in controlling HBS heterogeneity is firstly proposed. Since the dual effects of water migration on hydrate formation rate is non-negligible, a modified hydrate formation kinetic model is established by integrating the effects of water diffusion and water transportation on dynamic reaction area. Furthermore, three typical nature-like HBS (lumpy, layered, and homogeneous HBS) with the same hydrate saturation of 0.673 but different heterogeneities are formed by changing the initial water distribution. The proposed kinetic model successfully predicts that the average formation rate of lumpy HBS is 16 times faster than that of homogeneous HBS. This model solves the problem in describing the variations of formation rates of homogeneous and heterogeneous HBS. The hydrate distribution and morphology are also captured by X-ray Computed Tomography (X-CT) scans. The X-CT results further confirm that the spontaneous water transportation against gravity results in heterogeneous hydrate distribution and various hydrate morphologies in pores. Hence, the newly proposed formation mechanism and formation method of heterogeneous HBS in this work provide theoretical support and research method for future studies on efficient exploitation of naturally occurring heterogeneous HBS.

Effect of biopolymers and their mixtures with glycine on the formation kinetics of methane hydrates

In oil and gas industry formation of gas hydrates are a huge nuisance which disturbs the flow assurance. Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors (KHIs) have been investigated, developed, and applied to retard the hydrate formation and ensure the smooth flow. Among KHIs, glycine and biodegradable polymers are investigated as potent gas hydrate inhibitors. In this work the kinetic performance of synergic materials which are the combination of biopolymers and amino acid is evaluated for inhibiting methane hydrates. Where, 0.2 wt% of biopolymers including Pectin (PC), Sodium-Carboxymethyl cellulose (Na-CMC), Tapioca starch (TS) and Xanthan gum (XG)) are mixed with 5 wt% of glycine (G). The investigation is conducted by isochoric constant cooling method on sapphire reactor at 9.5 MPa and temperatures of 274 K and 277 K. Three main factors i.e., induction time, hydrate formation rate and mole consumption of methane are observed to determine the formation kinetics of methane hydrates. In addition, percentage relative inhibition strength (%RIS) of biopolymer + glycine mixtures are compared with literature. Results revealed that, G + XG delayed the induction time to 47 min at 274 K and reduced the hydrate formation rates at 277 K. As for mole consumption, G + XG and G + PC consumed the least amount of gas.

Effect of pressure on methane hydrate formation in graphite nanofluids in non-stirred system

Given the increasing demand for clean natural gas energy, solidified natural gas (SNG) is regarded as a potential natural gas storage technology owing to its numerous advantages. In this work, the effects of the concentration of graphite nanoparticles (GNs) on the rate of hydrate formation, gas consumption, induction time, and morphology of methane hydrates under different pressures were studied. The results showed that under lower pressure, the low concentration of GNs increased the gas consumption of hydrates, but the hydrate formation rate decreased by 50% and the induction time increased. The addition of high concentration GNs decreased the hydrate formation rate significantly, there was no obvious induction period, and the final gas consumption changed little. At the same time, only a small amount of hydrate was formed, accompanied by a considerable volume of foam. Under higher pressure, the addition of GNs promoted the formation of hydrates, increased the rate of hydrate formation. Among them, the 0.3 wt% concentration of GNs showed the best promotion effect, and the final gas consumption was higher than that of other metal and oxide nanofluids. Therefore, under the proper pressure, using cheap GNs as promoters can not only effectively promote hydrate formation, but also save costs.

Experimental investigation and ANN modelling on CO2 hydrate kinetics in multiphase pipeline systems

Gas hydrates are progressively becoming a key concern when determining the economics of a reservoir due to flow interruptions, as offshore reserves are produced in ever deeper and colder waters. The creation of a hydrate plug poses equipment and safety risks. No current existing models have the feature of accurately predicting the kinetics of gas hydrates when a multiphase system is encountered. In this work, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are developed to study and predict the effect of the multiphase system on the kinetics of gas hydrates formation. Primarily, a pure system and multiphase system containing crude oil are used to conduct experiments. The details of the rate of formation for both systems are found. Then, these results are used to develop an A.I. model that can be helpful in predicting the rate of hydrate formation in both pure and multiphase systems. To forecast the kinetics of gas hydrate formation, two ANN models with single layer perceptron are presented for the two combinations of gas hydrates. The results indicated that the prediction models developed are satisfactory as R2 values are close to 1 and M.S.E. values are close to 0. This study serves as a framework to examine hydrate formation in multiphase systems.

Minireview of Hydrate-Based CO2 Separation from a CO2/CH4 Gas Mixture: Progress and Outlook

Hydrate-based gas separation is a promising method for CO2 capture from CO2/CH4 gas mixtures, and with improved gas separation efficiency, rate of hydrate formation, and gas uptake, this process has the potential to be taken from the lab scale to industry. In this regard, a significant body of work has been conducted in recent years with the aim to enhance the kinetics of the hydrate-based CO2 capture process. The present study presents a review of the kinetic studies performed on the enhancement of hydrate-based CO2 capture from CO2/CH4 in terms of using additives, porous media, nanofluids, etc. Future research directions are also discussed. The present review aims to aid understanding of the mechanism of the hydrate-based CO2 capture process and to provide references for the development of hydrate-based CO2 capture technology toward industrial applications in the near future.

Kinetic Analysis of Methane Hydrate Formation with Butterfly Turbine Impellers.

Heat generation during gas hydrate formation is an important problem because it reduces the amount of water and gas that become gas hydrates. In this research work, we present a new design of an impeller to be used for hydrate formation and to overcome this concern by following the hydrodynamic literature. CH4 hydrate formation experiments were performed in a 5.7 L continuously stirred tank reactor using a butterfly turbine (BT) impeller with no baffle (NB), full baffle (FB), half baffle (HB), and surface baffle (SB) under mixed flow conditions. Four experiments were conducted separately using single and dual impellers. In addition to the estimated induction time, the rate of hydrate formation, hydrate productivity and hydrate formation rate, constant for a maximum of 3 h, were calculated. The induction time was less for both single and dual-impeller experiments that used full baffle for less than 3 min and more than 1 h for all other experiments. In an experiment with a single impeller, a surface baffle yielded higher hydrate growth with a value of 42 × 10−8 mol/s, while in an experiment with dual impellers, a half baffle generated higher hydrate growth with a value of 28.8 × 10−8 mol/s. Both single and dual impellers achieved the highest values for the hydrate formation rates that were constant in the full-baffle experiments.

Effect of surface structure on the kinetic of THF hydrate formation

The most important aim of this study is to check the surface effect on THF/H2O hydrate formation by the volumetric method [Asadi et al. J. Mol. Liq., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2019.111200]. A wide variety of experiments have been conducted to investigate effective parameters on hydrate formation. Suitable additives and operational conditions have been already studied while the effect of other parameters including surface efficacy has not been considered. Hence, the experiments have been done at atmospheric pressure in a cell that has a prefabricated surface. Therefore, the modified surfaces used here are 304 stainless steel specimens with specific roughness which have been coarsened through laser. Since the roughness and wettability of metallic plates play a critical role in hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity of surfaces, the contact angles have been measured between 123.00 and 23.47°changing the speed of laser radiation. It is demonstrated, increasing radiation speed forms a hydrophilic surface. Moreover, hydrate nucleation and growth have been rapidly recorded via volume changes of solution. Subsequently, the most effective surface has been recognized according to induction and relaxation time as well as the rate of hydrate formation. The results show that developing a hydrophilic surface, the rate of THF hydrate formation is highly increased. Therefore, this study can provide a new viewpoint in the relation of surface structure and the kinetics of THF/H2O hydrate formation.

Development of a Prediction Model for Gas Hydrate Formation in Multiphase Pipelines by Artificial Intelligence

AbstractA prediction model is developed by means of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to determine the gas hydrate formation kinetics in multiphase gas dominant pipelines with crude oil. Experiments are conducted to determine the rate of formation and reaction kinetics of hydrates formation in multiphase systems. Based on the results, an artificial intelligence model is proposed to predict the gas hydrate formation rate in multiphase transmission pipelines. Two ANN models are suggested with single‐layer perceptron (SLP) and multilayer perceptron (MLP). The MLP shows more accurate prediction when compared to SLP. The models were predicted accurately with high prediction accuracy both for the pure and multiphase systems.

Effects of hydrate inhibitors on the adhesion strengths of sintered hydrate deposits on pipe walls

The effects of hydrate inhibitors on the adhesion of sintered hydrate deposits on pipe walls are still unexplored. Herein, a custom-built adhesion strength measurement apparatus was utilized to quantify the adhesion strengths of sintered cyclopentane (CyC5) hydrate deposits with thermodynamic inhibitors (ethylene glycol, glycerol) and low-dosage inhibitors (dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid (DBSA), sorbitan oleate (Span 80)). It was found that the hydrate adhesion strengths decreased by 69.82%-97.06% and 40.24%-94.36% with the concentration of ethylene glycol and glycerol increased from 2 wt% to 6 wt%, respectively. For DBSA and Span 80, the hydrate adhesion strength increased with concentration less than 0.01 wt% due to the acceleration on hydrate growth. The further increment of concentration leads to a dramatic reduction in adhesion strengths. Furthermore, the relatively large deviations with the predicted strengths led to the discussions of the effects of change in hydrate formation rate, crystal morphology, and also the adaption of the fitting model. Two modified models were proposed to give a better prediction/explanation of the hydrate adhesion with thermodynamic inhibitors and low-dosage inhibitors, respectively. This work provides a fundamental understanding of the adhesion mechanism of hydrate deposits with hydrate inhibitors, which is important in advancing the management of hydrate formation for preventing plugging in pipelines.

Methane Flux Effect on Hydrate Formation and Its Acoustic Responses in Natural Sands

The acoustic properties of hydrate deposits are important parameters for hydrate geophysical exploration, and the gas leakage model plays a very important role in hydrate accumulation systems. In order to reflect the gas supply environment during hydrate formation, a high-pressure device with a simulated leakage system was designed to achieve different methane flux supplies. The effects of different methane fluxes on the hydrate formation rate and the maximum hydrate saturation were obtained. The results in this study indicate that similar hydrate formation rates occur in systems with different methane fluxes. However, when the methane flux is large, it takes longer to reach the maximum hydrate saturation, and the larger the methane flux, the larger the hydrate saturation formed. In each methane flux system, the elastic velocity increased slowly with increasing hydrate saturation at the beginning of hydrate formation, but velocity increased quickly when the hydrate saturation reached 50–60%. In order to take into account the effect of the gas, the calculated values of the elastic velocity model were compared with the experimental data, which indicated that the BGTL theory and the EMT model are more adaptable and can be used to deduce hydrate morphology. In the large methane flux system, the hydrate mainly forms at grain contacts when the hydrate saturation is 10–60%. As the hydrate saturation reaches 60–70%, hydrate forms first in the pore fluid, and then the hydrates contact sediment particles.

Experimental Insights Into the In Situ Formation and Dissociation of Gas Hydrate in Sediments of Shenhu, South China Sea

Natural gas hydrates as sustainable energy resources are inherently affected by mineral surfaces and confined spaces in reservoirs. However, the habits of hydrates in geological sediments are still an open question. In this work, we systemically studied the process of hydrate formation and dissociation in sediments from the Shenhu area of the South China Sea to examine the evolution of hydrate saturation and permeability in sediments and their relationship. Characterization of samples indicates that sediments of the Shenhu area are mainly composed of clay and fine sand grains and provide a large number of nanopores for hydrate accumulation. For in situ observations enabled by low-field nuclear magnetic resonance methods, the formation of hydrates shows a different kinetic behavior with an induction time compared to hydrate dissociation. Estimated by variations of hydrate saturation (%) over time, the rate of hydrate formation is around 12%/min, while the dissociation rate increases to 3%/min with the higher temperature. With the presence of hydrates, pore space and thus permeability of sediments decreased obviously by one and three orders of magnitude when the hydrate saturation is 20 and 45%, respectively. Compared to models with the assumption of grain-coating and pore-filling hydrates, the tendency of permeability evolution from NMR measurements is between fitted lines from models. It highlights that the existing models considering a single pattern of hydrate growth cannot precisely describe the relationship between permeability and hydrate saturation. Hybrid hydrate habits coexist in sediments resulting from heterogeneous pore structures and thus complex gas–water distributions.

Effects of Composite Accelerators on the Formation of Carbon Dioxide Hydrates.

To improve the rate of formation of carbon dioxide hydrates, tetra-n-butylammonium bromide (TBAB) was compounded with different concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and nanographite, and the effects of these mixtures on carbon dioxide hydrate formation were studied. The addition of TBAB alone, as well as mixtures of TBAB and SDS or nanographite, shortened the induced nucleation time, and the induction times of the TBAB–2.5 g/L nanographite and TBAB–0.24 g/L SDS systems were the shortest and longest, respectively. Further, on mixing TBAB and SDS, the induced nucleation time first increased and then decreased with the increase in the SDS concentration. When TBAB and nanographite were mixed together, the induced nucleation time first decreased, then increased, and again decreased with the increase in the nanographite concentration. In addition, the hydrate formation rate and conversion were highest for the TBAB–0.48 g/L SDS system and lowest for the TBAB–0.06 g/L SDS system; in the first 35 min, from the end of gas charging, the TBAB–10 g/L nanographite and TBAB–5 g/L nanographite systems yielded the highest and lowest hydrate formation rates and conversions, respectively. For the composite systems, obvious effects were observed in the initial stages of reaction, but the effects varied over the course of the reaction. Overall, the use of different accelerators resulted in little differences in the total production, conversion, and formation rate of carbon dioxide hydrates over the course of the reaction.

Experimental investigation of methane hydrate formation in the presence of metallic packing

Clathrate hydrates gained significant attention as a viable option for large-scale storage of natural gas, primarily methane (CH4). Unlike employing the nanoconfinement for enhancing the nucleation sites and hydrate growth as in the porous materials, whose synthesis is often associated with high costs and poor batch reproducibility, a new approach for promoting CH4 hydrates using pure water (H2O) in an unstirred reactor packed with stainless steel beads (SSB) was proposed in this fundamental work, where the interstitial space between the beads was exploited for enhanced hydrate growth. SSB of two diameters, 5 mm and 2 mm, were used as.a packed bed to investigate their effects on CH4 hydrate formation at 273.65 K, 275.65 K, and 277.65 K with an initial pressure of 6 MPa. The thermal conductivity of SSB packing potentially aided hydrate growth by expelling the hydration heat, while, the results also revealed that driving force has a substantial impact on the rate of CH4 hydrate formation and gas uptake. The experiments conducted in both 5 mm and 2 mm SSB packed bed reactors showed a maximum gas uptake of 0.147 mol CH4/mol H2O at 273.65 K with water to hydrate conversion of 84.42% with no significant variation. The results established the promotion effect on the kinetics of CH4 hydrate formation in the unstirred reactor packed with 2 mm SSB due to the availability of more interstitial space offering multiple nucleation sites for CH4 hydrate by providing a larger specific surface area for H2O-CH4 reaction. Experiments with varying H2O content were also performed and the results showed that the water to hydrate conversion and rate of hydrate formation could be enhanced at a lower H2O content in a packed bed reactor. This study demonstrates that the use of costly or intricate porous materials can be made redundant, by exploiting the interstitial voids in packing of cheap and widely available SSB as a promising alternative material for enhancing the kinetics of artificial CH4 hydrate synthesis.