InterPore2024

Clathrate Hydrates in Porous Media: Application to Low-carbon Fuels in Clean Energy Transition

15 May 2024, 15:00

15m

Oral Presentation (MS17) Complex fluid and Fluid-Solid-Thermal coupled process in porous media: Modeling and Experiment MS17

Speaker

Junjie Zheng (Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore)

Description

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) plays a crucial role in facilitating low-carbon fuel adoption during the clean energy transition. Clathrate hydrates are solid compounds consisting of gas molecules enclathrated in crystalline lattices formed by water molecules. Specifically, CO2 hydrate has become an attractive way for CO2 capture, storage and long-term sequestration. For CO2 capture, fixed bed reactor (FBR) configuration using porous media was reported to significantly enhance the kinetics of the hydrate-based CO2 separation process. Porous media are beneficial as they can provide more hydrate nucleation sites, tortuous pathways for fluid diffusion and sufficient gas-water contact area. On the other hand, forming CO2 hydrates in deep marine sediment offers a secure solution for long-term carbon sequestration due to their higher density than seawater, high stability under moderate oceanic depths, and low susceptibility to oceanic flow perturbation. It is also possible to sequestrate CO2 in natural gas hydrate reservoirs via CO2-CH4 swapping and bring more economic benefits by recovering natural gas. This work will highlight the research efforts carried out by our group in the aforementioned aspects [1-6] and discuss the key roles of porous media in these hydrate processes. The major challenges and prospects are also identified and highlighted.