Pore-Scale Modeling of Methane Hydrate Dissociation Using a Multiphase Micro-Continuum Framework

Zhiying Liu, Qianghui Xu (), Junyu Yang () and Lin Shi
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Zhiying Liu: Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Qianghui Xu: School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Junyu Yang: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK
Lin Shi: Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 22, 1-25

Abstract: The development of methane hydrate extraction technology remains constrained due to the limited physical understanding of hydrate dissociation dynamics. While recent breakthroughs in pore-scale visualization techniques offer intuitive insights into the dissociation process, obtaining a profound grasp of the underlying mechanisms necessitates more than mere experimental observations. In this research, we introduce a two-phase micro-continuum model that facilitates the numerical simulation of methane hydrate dissociation at both single- and multiscale levels. We employed this numerical model to simulate microfluidic experiments and determined the kinetic parameters of methane hydrate dissociation based on experimental data under various dissociation scenarios. The simulations, once calibrated, correspond closely to experimental results. By comprehensively comparing the simulated results with experimental data, the rate constant and the effective diffusion coefficient were reliably determined to be k d = 1.5 × 10 8 kmol 2 /(J·s·m 2 ) and D l = 0.8 × 10 −7 m 2 /s, respectively. Notably, the multiscale model not only matches the precision of the single-scale model but also presents considerable promise for streamlining the simulation of hydrate dissociation across multiscale porous media. Moreover, we contrast hydrate dissociation under isothermal versus adiabatic conditions, wherein the dissociation rate is significantly reduced under adiabatic conditions due to the shifted thermodynamic condition. This comparison highlights the disparities between microfluidic experiments and real-world extraction environments.

Keywords: methane hydrate; pore-scale simulation; micro-continuum approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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