Experimental study of using CuO nanoparticles as a methane hydrate promoter

According to the increasing trend of natural gas contribution in the human consumption market, the attentions to the gas storage and transport methods are attracted. Gas hydrates were considered as a novel method for transporting natural gas in the recent decades. Hydrate formation is a low speed process and the gas storage of this method is less than other methods. These two factors are mentioned as the main problems for the industrialization of hydrate formation process. To solve these two problems, surfactants and nanoparticles as a new materials have been used especially in the recent decades. Because of the large surface area of nanoparticles, making suitable sites for heterogeneous nucleation and better heat and mass transfer, nanoparticles may supposed to have a strong synergistic effect on the gas hydrate formation process. In this study, spherical copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles were used to improve (decrease) the induction time and also increase the storage capacity of gas hydrates. The results showed that using these nanoparticles at the pressure of 55 bar and temperature of 2.5 °C, leads to the decrease in the induction time by 92.7% and the increase in the storage capacity by 34% compared to the pure water.