Patricia Taboada-Serrano, Phillip Szymcek, Scott McCallum, and Costas Tsouris. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6036
Naturally occurring clathrate hydrates can be found in coastal sediments or the permafrost, and their exploration constitutes an attractive future source of energy. Industrially, clathrate hydrates offer promising means for safe storage and transport of large volumes of gas, for example hydrogen or methane gas. Additionally, utilization of gas hydrates for ocean carbon sequestration as a means to control build-up of greenhouse gases is a field of active research. Clathrate hydrates are solid crystalline structures in which water cages enclose gas molecules in a unit volume equivalent to at least a hundred unit volumes of gas under the same conditions. The conditions for the formation and stability of gas hydrates involve high pressures and low temperatures, a few degrees above the freezing point of water. This fact makes the description of the phase behavior of gas hydrate forming mixtures quite challenging. In this study, we report on the formation of gas hydrates from two gaseous mixtures of interest: CO2/N2 (a model mixture for flue gas), and CH4/C3H8 (a model mixture for natural gas). The results are relevant to the development of carbon sequestration and natural gas production technologies.