RELATION BETWEEN THE PRESSURE OF GASES AND THE HYDRATE FORMATION PROCESS: CONSEQUENCES FOR CO2 /CH4 REPLACEMENT AND FOR STORAGE APPLICATIONS

The hypothesis pursued in this work deals with the influence that the local pressure of the reservoir could exert on the CO2 /CH4 replacement and on the gas storage processes. To experimentally validate such hypothesis, the relation between initial pressure of the system and induction, formation, and dissociation time was found and described. Sixteen methane hydrates formation and dissociation tests were carried out in a lab-scale reactor. The tests were made consecutively and with the same gas–water mixture to avoid differences between the tests related to the memory effect. The main difference between experiments consisted in the initial pressure of the system, which ranged from 62.41 bar to 46.03 bar. The effect of varying the initial pressure was evaluated by considering its influence on the induction period and the time required for methane hydrates growth and dissociation