Author(s)

Chi Y. Lo, P. Somasundaran, Jae W. Lee

Chemical Engineering, City College of New York, New York, USA.
Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, USA.

Hydrate technology has advanced to greater proportions: implementing the high latent heats as refrigerant, safe carbon capture as carbon sequestration in hydrates, purifying rare gases in hydrates, and safe efficient transport of energy using rapid hydrate formation. These account for only a small amount of the fundamental understanding of gas hydrates and the use of such a novel technology. A quick and broad analysis of novel hydrate promoters is needed to assess the potential of other promoter agents. This will improve the understanding of rapid hydrate formation and fundamental ideas related to the kinetics and formation of hydrates. There are still hundreds of other surfactants that have not been identified for rapid formation. The insurmountable endeavor deters many from trying as it can be like finding a needle in a hay stack. This almost futile endeavor of correctly identifying a surfactant as a promoter agent without doing a formation test can be accomplished with recent techniques. Using Raman and a liquid hydrocarbon (Cyclo-pentane), surfactants may shift the sample’s peak towards the hydrate peak (890 cm^–1), thereby identifying it as a choice surfactant for rapid formation of hydrates. With a broad survey of surfactants, understanding fundamental science and engineering kinetics for hydrates will be easily achieved. Finding more effective and novel surfactants for hydrate formations will broaden the field of hydrates and self-assembling crystallization. As hydrate technology broadens, interdisciplinary fields can contribute expertise from surface science to spectroscopy leading to geological formations and engineering kinetics.

Gas Hydrate; Promoter; Technology; Clathrate

C. Lo, P. Somasundaran and J. Lee, "Quick Assessment of Potential Hydrate Promoters for Rapid Formation," Geomaterials, Vol. 2 No. 4, 2012, pp. 63-69. doi: 10.4236/gm.2012.24010.