A Brief Overview of Lab - Scale Apparatuses Used in the Recent Years for Experimental Investigations on Gas Hydrates

Gas hydrates are nonstoichiometric solid crystalline compound, whose formation is a function of several parameters, such as pressure, temperature, fluid phase composition, reservoir saturation degree and others. One of the most critical aspects related to the research on this manner stays in differences existing between experimental results reached by using different experimental apparatuses. Moreover, laboratory scale reactors often have very contained dimensions with a consequent increasing influence of the boundary conditions. In the present paper, a brief overview of reactors used worldwide for experimental research on gas hydrates formation, is provided. In particular, the surface/volume ratio was calculated for each different typology of reactor and then associated with the ratio between moles of guest compound entrapped into water cages and moles injected. Even if such a ratio does not represent the process efficiency, it is proportional to it. Consequently, that comparison was useful to well define the supporting effect of a greater S/V ratio on the hydrate formation process efficiency.