The Role of Step-Heating Hydrate Dissociation on Gas Hydrate Equilibrium Point Measurements

Gas Hydrate formation was introduced as the cause of natural gas pipeline blockage above the water freezing point at relatively high-pressures by Hammerschmidt in 1934. In the oil and natural gas industry, the most common strategies to deal with hydrate formation can be pointed to the following: keeping operating conditions outside the hydrate stability zone and/or shifting hydrate equilibrium curve using thermodynamic inhibitors to prevent hydrate formation. Hence, knowledge about the hydrate equilibrium curve of natural gas transporting through pipeline seems to play the primary role in gas hydrate flow assurance -controlling and preventing hydrate formation. In this paper, using constant-volume isochoric method, hydrate dissociation was performed through step-heating of the system in order to determine the exact experimental hydrate equilibrium point. Finally, the accuracy of methane hydrate experimental data were disscused in terms of the scale of temperature increment and the duration time of each step.The results showed a good agreement with the literature data confirming the acceptability of step-heating dissociation at isochoric method

کلیدواژه ها:

Methane hydrate ، Equilibrium point ، Step-heating dissociation ، isochoric method