Carbon Dioxide Storage Using Gas Hydrates and Kinetics Modeling in a Large-Scale Reactor

Modern energy requirements are driving carbon dioxide emissions to cause climate change. Carbon dioxide capture and storage is the key to continual development. CO2 capture through hydrate technology is a promising solution among several methods. The current work has attempted to store carbon dioxide in the hydrate form at a large-scale 25 L reactor. The hydrate is formed in pure and saline water conditions to demonstrate the hydrate-based gas storage can be achieved without the need of purified water. Further, tetrahydrofuran (THF), a thermodynamic promoter, is also used in combination with kinetic promoter sodium dodecyl sulfate to explore the hydrate-based storage at lower pressure requirements. The experiments are conducted after preparing the reactor bed at an initial pressure 35 bar and 275.15 K. The reactor is also connected to various other components, including a recirculating bath to maintain a constant temperature and a gas booster for charging the gas in the reactor. Chemical affinity-based hydrate growth modeling is used to analyze the hydrate formation process. The experimental results demonstrate that carbon dioxide can be successfully captured in both saline and pure water. The affinity rate constant decreased with an increase in the hydrate growth kinetics, indicating lesser mass transfer resistance to the hydrate growth. Further, carbon dioxide storage based on the hydrate technology can be successfully implemented using carefully selected thermodynamic and kinetic promoters.