Yanhong Zheng

Equilibrium PT curve of methane hydrates in the presence of AlCl3

Using an experimental transparent sapphire high-pressure cell, three-phase (methane hydrate + AlCl3 solution + methane) equilibrium conditions of methane hydrates in the aqueous solution containing AlCl3 have been investigated under conditions of temperature from 272.15 to 278.15 K and pressure from 4.040 to 8.382 MPa. It could be clearly verified that AlCl3 is of stronger inhibitive effect than that observed for other electrolytes, such as KCl, CaCl2, at the same mole fraction. The induction time of the methane hydrate formation becomes longer when the water activity decreases with the increase of ion charge numbers. Methane hydrates tend to crystallize more easily with higher concentration (AlCl3 concentration of 18%) than lower one (AlCl3 concentration of 10%) in the same electriclyte solution. An empirical exponential equation is presented to calculate the equilibrium temperature and pressure of methane hydrate stable occurrence, and to correlate the measured data for aqueous AlCl3 solution. The results show that there was infinitely small discrepancy between the theoretical computed values and the data oberserved in actual experiments.