Hydrate formation using water spraying onto a cooled solid surface in a guest gas

Abstract

An experimental study has been performed on the water spraying onto a cooled metal-block surface exposed to a hydrate-forming gas as a means of high-rate hydrate formation for the purpose of, for example, natural-gas storage. Special attention has been paid to the effectiveness of conductive cooling of the metal block for removing the heat of hydrate formation directly from the site of the hydrate formation-i.e., the surface of the metal block. HFC-32 that forms a hydrate of structure I at moderate pressures was used as a model gas to enable visual observations of hydrate formation inside a large-windowed spray chamber. The operational parameters that we varied in the present experiments were the pressure inside the chamber, the temperature of water just before spraying, and the surface temperature of the metal block. Throughout each experimental run, we continuously measured the rate of HFC-32 supply to the chamber to maintain the pressure at a prescribed level and also the heat-flow rate through the metal block to the outside of the chamber.