CO2 Capture By Gas Hydrate Formation: Combined Effect of Thermodynamic and Kinetic Promoters

Carbon capture by gas hydrate crystallization is a promising technology currently being considered in the battle to mitigate climate change. However, the requirement of both high pressure and slow formation rates are serious limitations which need to be resolved prior to implementing this technology at demonstration scale. Various additives (e.g.: THF, TBAB, cyclopentane and others) are known to promote hydrate formation thermodynamically by reducing the hydrate formation pressure.  Furthermore there are also kinetic promoters such as surfactants which can increase the hydrate crystallization rate based on the concentration. The appropriate combination of thermodynamic and kinetic promoters has the potential to move the technology towards practical application.. In this work, the hydrate-based process for carbon dioxide capture was tested in a rocking cell (RC-5; Systemtechnik, Germany) apparatus. Various combinations of surfactant (kinetic promoters: SDS and CTAB) and THF (thermodynamic promoter) in liquid water were assessed in order to find the optimum operating conditions.