Molecular insights into the synergistic inhibition mechanisms of antifreeze protein and methanol on carbon dioxide hydrate growth

Yue Zhang, Chengyang Yuan, Zherui Chen, Cong Chen, Xiaodong Liang, Nicolas von Solms and Yongchen Song

Energy, 2024, vol. 310, issue C

Abstract: The formation of CO2 hydrates during CO2 transportation and deep-sea injection poses a significant risk of pipeline blockage. Combining kinetic (KHIs) and thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors (THIs) serves as a promising efficient and economical strategy to mitigate this issue, whose performance and microscopic mechanisms yet are still poorly understood. This study employs molecular dynamics simulations to explore the effects of the combination of winter flounder antifreeze protein (wf-AFP) as a KHI and methanol as a THI on CO2 hydrate growth. We find that methanol and wf-AFP exhibit an intriguing synergistic inhibition performance on hydrate growth. In the AFP-only system, AFP serves as a spatial hindrance near the hydrate growth interface. However, in the AFP + methanol system, AFP changes its position due to the attractive force of methanol. Part of the AFP fragment remains on the hydrate interface, while the rest surrounds the CO2 droplet. Methanol, in addition to disrupting the water structure, combines with AFP to act as a double barrier to CO2 dissolution into the aqueous solution, thereby significantly reducing the gas source for hydrate growth. These findings provide molecular-level insights into hydrate inhibition mechanisms and guide the design of efficient inhibitors for safe CO2 transportation and injection.

Keywords: Antifreeze protein; CO2 hydrate; Flow assurance; Molecular dynamics; Synergistic inhibition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224030159
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:310:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224030159

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.133239

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().