Influence of Temperature upon Dissociation Rate of Methane Hydrate Pellets

Abstract

For the purpose of sea-borne transport of stranded natural gas in the form of gas hydrate at lower pressure and at higher temperature compared to the conventional liquefied natural gas (LNG) method, the authors are experimentally examining temperature influence upon dissociation behavior of methane hydrate pellets (MHPs) in bulk. The authors designed and made an experimental apparatus that can control the surrounding temperature of dissociating MHPs with high accuracy, and conducted some MHPs dissociation experiments at atmospheric pressure by changing the set-up temperature as a parameter. As a result, it was confirmed that MHPs' dissociation behavior heavily depends upon the temperature.