Dissociation behavior of pellet shaped mixed gas hydrate samples that contain propane as a guest

The dissociation kinetics of mixed gas hydrates that contain propane as a guest molecule have been investigated. The mixed gas hydrates used in this work were artificially prepared using the binary gas mixture of methane–propane and the ternary gas mixture of methane–ethane–propane. The crystal structures and the guest compositions of the mixed hydrates were clearly identified by using Raman spectroscopy and gas chromatography. The dissociation rates of the gas hydrates observed under several isothermal and isobaric conditions were discussed with an analytical model. The isobaric conditions were achieved by pressurizing with mixed gases using buffer cylinders, which had similar compositions to those of the initial gases used for synthesizing each hydrate sample. Interestingly, the calculated result agreed well with the experimentally observed results only when the composition of the vapor phase was assumed to be identical with that of the hydrate phase instead of the bulk (equilibrium) gas composition.