InterPore2025

Mechanism of Rapid Hydrate Formation: Insights from Pilot to Pore Scales

19 May 2025, 15:05

1h 30m

Poster Presentation (MS06-B) Interfacial phenomena across scales Poster

Speaker

Xuan Kou (Assistant Professor)

Description

Rapid hydrate formation is a long-standing ticklish problem of resource exploitation and industrial application. The mechanism of rapid hydrate formation and its significance remains unrevealed due to the lack of effective research methods. In this work, to reveal comprehensively the rapid hydrate formation behaviors, we conducted in-situ hydrate phase transition experiments from pilot-scale to small cubic-scale and pore-scale under various gas/water saturated conditions.
Experimental results reveal that the rapid hydrate formation location and period are closely related with the water distribution.

• Pore-scale dynamic images capture the rapid hydrate formation process and elucidate different morphologies and growth rates of methane hydrate under gas and water saturated conditions.
• The hydrate formation rate is elevated by three orders of magnitude without chemical promoters or physical disturbance under water-saturated condition (1.08×10-2 mm2/s) as compared with gas-saturated condition (1.60×10-5 mm2/s).
• Significantly, two new conceptual models describing ‘Unsteady Hydrate Film’ controlled mechanism of rapid hydrate formation under gas and water saturated conditions are proposed to describe distinctive rapid hydrate formation behaviors under gas/water saturated conditions. The unsteady hydrate film at the early depressurization stage enables the water migration through hydrate dendrites or pores within hydrate, thus inducing the rapid hydrate formation.
• Additionally, the hydrate growth rate strongly depends on the efficiency of water migration against gravity as well as the surface hydrophilic property of the flow channels.
  These findings have also addressed potential pros and cons of rapid hydrate formation, depending on hydrate formation locations such as target and non-target exploitation reservoir, gas/oil pipelines, and other hydrate application scenarios.
  Therefore, this study offers a unique opportunity to gain new insights into resource exploitation and environmental protection, and also be a step towards the cost-effective applications of hydrate formation in energy-demanding fields.