Methane Production and Carbon Capture by Hydrate Swapping

There are essentially two different approaches to producing methane from natural gas hydrate reservoirs, either bring the hydrate out of its thermodynamic stability region or expose the hydrate to a substance that will form a more stable hydrate structure, forcing an in situ swapping of the trapped gas molecules in the structural lattice. In this work, we quantitatively investigate the swapping behavior from injection of pure carbon dioxide and the (CO2 + N2) binary gas mixture through artificial hydrate-bearing sandstone samples by use of a core-flooding experimental apparatus. A total of 13 experimental runs were performed to examine the influence of operating conditions on methane production by CO2/(CO2 + N2) injection in the temperature range of 274.15–277.15 K and 7.039–10.107 MPa pressure. Our results show that the use of the (CO2 + N2) binary gas mixture is advantageous compared to the use of pure carbon dioxide in swapping methane from its hydrate phase; the methane recovery efficiency in brine wa...