Formulating formation mechanism of natural gas hydrates.

A large amount of energy, perhaps twice the total amount of all other hydrocarbon reserves combined, is trapped within gas hydrate deposits. Despite emerging as a potential energy source for the world over the next several hundred years and one of the key factors in causing future climate change, gas hydrate is poorly known in terms of its formation mechanism. To address this issue, a mathematical formulation is proposed in the form of a model to represent the physical insight into the process of hydrate growth that occurs on the surface and in the irregular nanometer-sized pores of the distributed porous particles. To evaluate the versatility of this rigorous model, the experimental data is used for methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrates grown in different porous media with a wide range of considerations.