Gas Hydrate Dynamics with Parameter-Free Clathrate Phase Description: Validation for Hydrate Formation and Dissociation.

Abstract

One of the major challenges involved in clathrate hydrate science that has remained for more than six decades lies in highly parametric clathrate phase estimation. In this contribution, a recently developed parameter-free hydrate phase statistical equilibrium model is employed for the first time to formulate the formation and dissociation dynamics of clathrates and predict their experimental observation at diverse geological conditions. This rigorous thermokinetic model takes into account various practical issues, notably hydrate formation in nanometer-sized pores (confirmed through seismic survey studies), irregularity in porous particle shape and pore size, renewal of the particle surface over which hydrate majorly forms and decays, and nth-order phase transformation. The model parameters are identified by formulating the genetic algorithm-based optimization strategy. Finally, this multicomponent hydrate model is tested by predicting the formation and decomposition data having pure water as well as saltwater with and without porous media. The proposed formulation secures a promising performance with a lower absolute average relative deviation for a wide variety of data sets over the latest hydrate models.