Thermodynamic studies on semi-clathrate hydrates of TBAB + gases containing carbon dioxide

CO2 capture has become an important area of research mainly due to its drastic greenhouse effects. Gas hydrate formation as a separation technique shows tremendous potential, both from a physical feasibility as well as an envisaged lower energy utilization criterion. Briefly, gas (clathrate) hydrates are non-stoichiometric, ice-like crystalline compounds formed through a combination of water and suitably sized guest molecule(s) under low-temperatures and elevated pressures. As the pressure required for gas hydrate formation is generally high, therefore, aqueous solution of tetra-n-butyl ammonium bromide (TBAB) is added to the system as a gas hydrate promoter. TBAB generally reduces the required hydrate formation pressure and/or increases the formation temperature as well as modifies the selectivity of hydrate cages to capture CO2 molecules. TBAB also takes part in the hydrogen-bonded cages. Such hydrates are called 'semi-clathrate' hydrates. Evidently, reliable and accurate phase equilibrium data, acceptable thermodynamic models, and other thermodynamic studies should be provided to design efficient separation processes using the aforementioned technology. For this purpose, phase equilibria of clathrate/semi-clathrate hydrates of various gas mixtures containing CO2 (CO2 + CH4/N2/H2) in the presence of pure water and aqueous solutions of TBAB have been measured in this thesis. In the theoretical section of the thesis, a thermodynamic model on the basis of the van der Waals and Platteeuw (vdW-P) solid solution theory along with the modified equations for determination of the Langmuir constants of the hydrate formers has been successfully developed to represent/predict equilibrium conditions of semi-clathrate hydrates of CO2, CH4, and N2. Later, several thermodynamic consistency tests on the basis of Gibbs-Duhem equation as well as a statistical approach have been applied on the phase equilibrium data of the systems of mixed/simple clathrate hydrates to conclude about their quality. (author)