(92b) Interfacial Properties of Gas Hydrates in Energy Applications

Gas hydrates are solid inclusion compounds that form when water and gas come into contact at high pressures and low temperatures. Understanding the interfacial properties of gas hydrates is important in a number of different energy applications, including the transportation of hydrocarbons in subsea oil and gas pipelines, containing an oil/gas well blowout, energy recovery (with carbon dioxide injection) from natural hydrated sediments, as well as energy storage in clathrate hydrate materials. This paper will present an overview of the state-of-the-art of hydrate science and engineering with specific emphasis on the interfacial properties of gas hydrate systems.  In the case of hydrocarbon transportation, gas hydrate formation can lead to blockage of the subsea pipelines. A key strategy to preventing pipeline blockages due to hydrates is to control the interfacial properties of the hydrates by minimizing hydrate-hydrate particle cohesion to maintain a transportable dispersion of hydrates in the hydrocarbon phase, and/or minimizing particle-surface adhesion and resulting deposition.  This strategy can be also applied to reduce the effects of hydrate formation in containing an oil/gas blowout/spill, in which the resulting plume of oil and gas can be well within the hydrate stability region, exhibiting analogous mechanistic behavior to that in the pipeline in terms of hydrate particle/surface interactions and deposition on the containment device.