Direct measurements of the dissociation behaviors of pure methane and ethane hydrates trapped in sintered tetrahydrofuran hydrate through a temperature ramping method showed that the tetrahydrofuran hydrate controls dissociation of the gas hydrates under thermodynamic instability at temperatures above the melting point of ice.

During Leg 204, we cored and logged nine sites on the Oregon continental margin to determine the distribution and concentration of gas hydrates in an accretionary ridge and adjacent slope basin, investigate the mechanisms that transport methane and other gases into the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ), and obtain constraints on physical properties of gas hydrates in situ. A three-dimensional s...

Existence of gas-hydrates in the marine sediments elevates the velocity of seismic waves, whereas even a small amount of underlying free-gas decreases the seismic velocity considerably. These changes in velocities can be used for the assessment of gas-hydrates. The traveltime inversion is an effective method to derive a 2-D velocity structure from the seismic data. We have applied the method to...

To facilitate advances in application of technologies pertaining to gas hydrates, a freely available data resource containing experimentally derived information about those materials was developed. This work was performed by the Thermodynamic Research Center (TRC) paralleling a highly successful database of thermodynamic and transport properties of molecular pure compounds and their mixtures. P...

Based on driving force for crystallization of one-component gas hydrate, in this report an expression for the supersaturation for crystallization of multicomponent gas hydrate is derived. Expressions for the supersaturation are obtained in isothermal and isobaric regimes. The results obtained are applied to the crystallization of hydrates of mixtures of methane plus ethane and can apply to ...

The effect of the concentration of kinetic hydrate inhibitors, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and polyvinylcaprolactam (PVCap) on the onset and growth of synthetic natural gas hydrates is investigated by measuring the hydrate onset time and gas consumption rate. Although the hydrate onset time is extended by increasing the concentration from 0.5 to 3.0 wt % for both PVP and PVCap, the growth rate ...

Phase equilibria involving gas hydrates are of importance in natural gas recovery and carbon dioxide sequestration. Due to high equilibrium pressures twoand three-phase equilibria for gas hydrates containing systems have been computed using equations of state and van der Waals and Platteeuw model for fugacity of guest components in gas hydrates. So far the inhibition effect has been accounted f...

Gas clathrate hydrates were first identified in 1810 by Sir Humphrey Davy. However, it is believed that other scientists, including Priestley, may have observed their existence before this date. They are solid crystalline inclusion compounds consisting of polyhedral water cavities which enclathrate small gas molecules. Natural gas hydrates are important industrially because the occurrence of th...

Gas mixtures of methane and ethane form structure II clathrate hydrates despite the fact that each of pure methane and pure ethane gases forms the structure I hydrate. Optimization of the interaction potential parameters for methane and ethane is attempted so as to reproduce the dissociation pressures of each simple hydrate containing either methane or ethane alone. An account for the structura...

The kinetics of the initial stage of crystallization of one-component gas hydrates in aqueous solutions are analyzed. The temporal evolution of the volume of hydrate crystallized and the moles of gas consumed are determined. Expressions are derived for the supersaturation dependence of the hydrate crystallite growth rate and the induction time in hydrate crystallization. These expressions are u...