Earth’s Cryosphere, 2017, Vol. XXI, No. 2, p. 38-45
NATURAL GAS HYDRATES FORMATION IN DISPERSED ICE STABILIZED WITH SILICA NANOPARTICLES
L.S. Podenko1, A.O. Drachuk2, N.S. Molokitina1,2, A.N. Nesterov1–3
1Earth Cryosphere Institute, SB RAS, 86, Malyginа str., Tyumen, 625000, Russia; lpodenko@yandex.ru
2 Tyumen State University, 6, Volodarskogo str., Tyumen, 625003, Russia
3 Tyumen Industrial University, 38, Volodarskogo str., Tyumen, 625000, Russia
The paper presents the study of natural gas hydrate formation in dispersed ice produced by either “dry water” freezing or by mechanical grinding with hydrophobic silica nanoparticles (stabilizer), along with the influence of the amount of stabilizer on dispersity of crushed ice and gas hydrate formation kinetics. It has been established that the time of half-transformation of dispersed ice into hydrate will decrease for frozen “dry water” with the increasing stabilizer content. For crushed ice, its half-transformation into hydrate will also take less time in case ice is ground with stabilizer, rather than without adding it. The time of half-transformation of dispersed ice into hydrate is found to be less than for frozen “dry water” with the stabilizer content of 5 wt.%, under identical conditions for water dispergating and ice grinding. If the content of stabilizer is 10 wt.%, the time of half-transformation of ice into hydrate will be less for frozen “dry water”. The obtained results might be used in technologies related to transportation, storage, and utilization of natural gases in the hydrate state. Realization of these projects would be more effective under the low-temperature conditions of high latitude regions.
Gas hydrate, frozen “dry water”, crushed ice, hydrophobic nanoparticles, nuclear magnetic resonance, hydrate formation kinetics