Experimental study and thermodynamic modeling of the stability conditions of methane clathrate hydrate in the presence of TEACl and/or BMIM-BF4 in aqueous solution

In this work, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMIM-BF4) and tetra ethyl-ammonium chloride (TEACl) were investigated to study their effects on thermodynamic stability conditions of methane clathrate hydrate. Different BMIM-BF4 and TEACl aqueous solutions (4.77 wt% (0.57 mol%) TEACl + 4.85 wt% (0.43 mol%) BMIM-BF4, 9.15 wt% (0.20 mol%) TEACl + 9.38 wt% (0.90 mol%) BMIM-BF4 and 11.82 wt% (1.63 mol%) TEACl + 11.82 wt% (1.20 mol%) BMIM-BF4) were used as thermodynamic inhibitors which have not been reported in literature. The experiments were conducted at constant volume from 274.6 K to 283.4 K and 3.18 MPa to 7.93 MPa. Moreover, methane hydrate phase equilibria in the aforementioned ioinic liquids (ILs) aqueous solutions were modeled. For this purpose, the chemical potential of water in hydrate phase is calculated using the van der Waals-Platteeuw (vdWP) theory. The Peng-Robinson (PR) equation of state (EoS) is used for calculation of fugacity in the gas phase. Water activity in the aqueous phase is determined by the NRTL activity coefficient model. Successful comparison of the experimental data with the modeling results confirms the model accuracy. It can also be observed that mixtures of the two aforementioned ionic liquids can inhibit methane hydrate formation more than each of single ILs. Furthermore, the studied ILs inhibit methane hydrate formation more at higher pressures.