二氧化碳置换开采天然气水合物控制因素研究

二氧化碳(CO₂)减排与能源短缺是当前全世界正面对的两大问题。利用水合物法CO₂置换开采天然气水合物(NGH)既可实现CO₂水合物地层封存,又能开采CH₄,是高效的CO₂利用与封存技术。本文开展CH₄-CO₂置换开采NGH实验,探究置换效率的影响因素。研究结果表明,置换效率受控于气体在水合物相的扩散,越靠近气相,置换效率越高,而越远离气相则置换效率越低。研究结果对于进一步提高CH₄-CO₂置换效率以及促进碳减排事业的发展具有重要的意义。     

CO2/N2置换-降压强化开采天然气水合物

将天然气水合物中的CH₄置换为CO₂水合物是未来能源生产和温室气体控制的一种创新方法,但通常条件下CO₂对水合物中CH₄的置换效率较低,因此采用混合气联合降压强化置换的开采方法被提出。模拟(海底静水压力)在三轴应力约束状态下,通过注入固定比例[n(CO₂)∶n(N₂)=4∶1]的置换气体,研究降压强化置换过程中储层气相组分、CH₄开采率与CO₂封存率的变化。结果表明：CO₂+N₂联合降压强化置换法大幅度提高CH₄水合物置换效率,CH₄置换率相较于传统置换法的15.2%提升至35.22%,其中N₂直接贡献率占8.66%。通过降压强化,显著增强分解后期阶段气体扩散效果,提高CH₄开采率与CO₂封存率,对提高水合物转换开采具有良好的应用前景。     

注CO2+N2混合气改造-开采CH4水合物储层

盖层不封闭且胶结弱是海域天然气水合物储层开采面临的挑战之一。直接降压开采所得气水比低,还可能引发储层失稳。对此,一种基于水合物原理的储层改造方法被提出,即向水合物储层上方注入CO₂形成人工CO₂水合物盖层,从而构造出一个相对封闭的开采环境。在前期工作基础上,本文研究了注入CO₂+N₂混合气改造-开采CH₄水合物储层的可行性。研究结果表明注入混合气体能够形成渗透性低、稳定性好的CO₂水合物盖层,可以有效降低降压开采过程中的产水量及提高CH₄采收率。当注入的混合气中N₂比例较高时,过量的N₂对CH₄水合物的分解存在促进作用,但N₂随甲烷采出增加了后续的分离难度。当注入的混合气中CO₂的比例较高时,人工盖层阻水效果更强,但CO₂产出量也随之增加,且限制了CH₄采收率的进一步提高。后续研究需要进一步优化注-采工艺条件来提高开采效率和降低气体分离能耗。     

多孔介质中CO2-CH4水合物置换的影响因素及强化机理研究进展

天然气水合物因其储量巨大、清洁无污染而成为未来最具潜力的清洁能源之一，CO₂置换法可实现天然气水合物的安全开采和温室气体的地层封存。然而，多孔介质中CO₂-CH₄水合物的置换过程存在反应周期长、速率慢、效率低等特点，已成为制约天然气水合物高效开采的瓶颈问题。本文全面综述了多孔介质体系中CO₂-CH₄水合物的置换特性，分析了CO₂-CH₄水合物的置换机理及其动力学过程。在此基础上，详述了不同因素对多孔介质中CO₂-CH₄水合物置换效率的影响规律及强化机理，包括热刺激、置换压力、小分子气体、化学添加剂等的作用机理及其规律。最后指出了多孔介质体系中CO₂-CH₄水合物置换过程强化技术存在的不足和未来的发展方向。对多孔介质体系中CO₂-CH₄水合物置换过程的强化机理及其动力学机制的认识仍需进一步研究。     

CH4/CO2混合气置换强化含氮低品质甲烷的浓缩

针对CO₂置换吸附分离CH₄/N₂过程中CO₂再生困难的问题,采用少量产品气CH₄真空吹扫以提高CO₂的解吸效果,并以解吸得到的CH₄/CO₂混合气为置换步骤的置换气,通过置换来强化含氮低品质甲烷的浓缩过程。以自制椰壳活性炭为吸附剂,对CH₄/CO₂混合气置换强化吸附回收含氮低品质甲烷工艺过程进行了实验与模拟研究。在gPROMS软件中建立并求解固定床吸附分离模型方程,预测了CH₄、N₂ 和CO₂在自制椰壳活性炭上的竞争吸附穿透曲线,通过预测结果和实验的对比,验证了数学模型方程的准确性。对比了不同置换气强化吸附分离低品质甲烷的效果,结果表明CH₄/CO₂混合气置换强化相对于CO₂置换强化可获得更高纯度产品。进行了CH₄/CO₂混合气置换强化真空变压吸附循环实验,可以将14%的CH₄/N₂和53%的CH₄/CO₂联合富集到98.8%,同时获得77.8%的回收率。     

盐水体系的二氧化碳-氢水合物结构和组分研究

水合物法二氧化碳(CO₂)捕集是实现“双碳”目标的高效技术之一。利用激光拉曼测量气体水合物结构和组成可以作为定性/定量分析水合物法CO₂分离捕集效率的基础。本研究利用激光拉曼测量了不同体系利用水合物法从CO₂/H₂混合气中分离捕集CO₂过程中水合物的微观结构和组成。研究结果表明，利用泡沫镍代替机械搅拌，促使H₂进入了水合物笼，从而降低了CO₂的分离效率。研究结果为进一步优化水合物法CO₂分离捕集工艺提供了科学依据。     

自生热体系开采天然气水合物效果评价

置换开采天然气水合物方法有避免地质灾害的优点，但其工艺复杂且置换效率低。为此，提出了一种利用自生热体系(亚硝酸钠、氯化铵、盐酸、氯化钙)反应释放的热量和氮气开采天然气水合物的方法。在已经优化的体系配方基础上，模拟天然气水合物藏低温高压(4℃、8MPa)的条件下开展自生热体系开采天然气水合物及CO₂开采天然气水合物效果对比实验，结合气相色谱分析结果计算两种方法的开采效率。结果表明：自生热体系1h内的开采效率可达59.24%，比CO₂的开采效率高32个百分点。研究成果为该体系在天然气水合物开采实验中的应用提供了依据。     

撞击流式反应器内水合物法分离沼气中CO2研究

实验考察了撞击流式反应釜内水合物法分离沼气中CO₂的特性。选取纯水和十二烷基硫酸钠（SDS）两个不同的体系,考察了水合物生成过程中压力、温度、撞击强度的影响。实验结果表明在纯水体系和SDS体系下压力的升高均有利于水合物的快速生成,但并不利于沼气中的二氧化碳捕集;实验通过改变撞击流式反应器的撞击强度发现,当撞击强度为0.128时,CO₂分离因子(S.F.)在纯水和SDS两种体系下均达到最大,纯水体系下S.F.的最大值为138.9,SDS体系下S.F.的最大值为64.5;实验结果表明添加剂SDS可以促进水合物的生成,最适宜的浓度为600 mg/L,此时耗气量、CO₂水合率S.Fr.(CO₂)和CH₄水合率S.Fr.(CH₄)达到最大,但SDS对CH₄水合物生成过程的促进作用大于CO₂水合物,反而不利于CO₂的分离,降低CO₂的分离因子。     

天然气水合物置换开采的能源效率研究

天然气水合物分解是一个相变过程,开采时涉及各种形式能量的消耗和转化,如电能、化学能、热能等。为了科学地评价天然气水合物开采技术的经济性,建立了以有效能（）为核心的能源效率计算方程,并以CO₂置换法开采天然气水合物为例,介绍任意生产周期内能源效率的计算方法和流程框图。在CO₂置换开采天然气水合物的工艺过程中,注气量、产气量和产气中甲烷含量是三个关键参数,将产气量与注气量之比定义为采注比,分析采注比及产气中甲烷含量对能源效率的影响。结果表明：在设定条件下CO₂置换开采天然气水合物的整体能源效率介于0.31～6.4之间;增大采注比,有利于提高能源效率;产气中甲烷的摩尔分率越高,气体分离的能耗越低,能源效率也可显著提高。因此,调控产气量和产气中甲烷摩尔分率是提高CO₂置换法能源效率的主要途径。通过所建立的能效计算方程为天然气水合物开采工艺的优化提供指导。     

一维直孔道MOFs对CH4/N2和CO2/CH4的分离

非常规天然气未来可以作为常规天然气的有效补充,其中低浓度煤层气和生物质燃气分别需要脱除大量的N₂ 和CO₂以达到富集和纯化CH₄的目的。本研究针对CH₄/N₂这一对较难分离的气体组合,选取了具有一维菱形孔道的MOFs材料Cu(INA)₂作为吸附剂,将合成的样品做了XRD和TG表征,测试了纯气体CO₂、CH₄和N₂的吸附曲线,利用巨正则系综蒙特卡罗(GCMC)分子模拟和理想吸附溶液理论(IAST)计算了气体的吸附热和该材料对于CH₄/N₂和CO₂/CH₄的吸附选择性系数;3 MPa压力下制备的颗粒样品填装吸附分离装置,进行了混合气体CH₄/N₂ (50%/50%)和CO₂/CH₄ (50%/50%)的穿透试验,分离的结果显示,Cu(INA)₂不仅高选择性地吸附CH₄/N₂混合物中的CH₄(S_CH4/N2=10),而且对CH₄/N₂的分离效果优于CO₂/CH₄。     

A review: Enhanced recovery of natural gas hydrate reservoirs

Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is a highly efficient and clean energy, with huge reserves and widespread distribution in permafrost and marine areas. Researches all over the world are committed to developing an effective exploring technology for NGH reservoirs. In this paper, four conventional in-situ hydrate production methods, such as depressurization, thermal stimulation, inhibitor injection and CO₂ replacement, are briefly introduced. Due to the limitations of each method, there has been no significantly breakthrough in hydrate exploring technology. Inspired by the development of unconventional oil and gas fields, researchers have put forward some new hydrate production methods. We summarize the enhanced hydrate exploiting methods, such as CO₂/N₂–CH₄ replacement, CO₂/H₂–CH₄ replacement, hydraulic fracturing treatment, and solid exploration; and potential hydrate mining techniques, such as self-generating heat fluid injection, geothermal stimulation, the well pattern optimization of hydrate exploring. The importance of reservoir stimulation technology for hydrate exploitation is emphasized, and it is believed that hydrate reservoir modification technology is a key to open hydrate resources exploitation, and the major challenges in the process of hydrate exploitation are pointed out. The combination of multiple hydrate exploring technologies and their complementary advantages will be the development trend in the future so as to promote the process of hydrate industrialization.     

One‐dimensional productivity assessment for on‐field methane hydrate production using CO2/N2 mixture gas

The direct recovery of methane from gas hydrate‐bearing sediments is demonstrated, where a gaseous mixture of CO₂ + N₂ is used to trigger a replacement reaction in complex phase surroundings. A one‐dimensional high‐pressure reactor (8 m) was designed to test the actual aspects of the replacement reaction occurring in natural gas hydrate (NGH) reservoir conditions. NGH can be converted into CO₂ hydrate by a “replacement mechanism,” which serves double duty as a means of both sustainable energy source extraction and greenhouse gas sequestration. The replacement efficiency controlling totally recovered CH₄ amount is inversely proportional to CO₂ + N₂ injection rate which directly affecting solid ‐ gas contact time. Qualitative/quantitative analysis on compositional profiles at each port reveals that the length more than 5.6 m is required to show noticeable recovery rate for NGH production. These outcomes are expected to establish the optimized key process variables for near future field production tests. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 1004–1014, 2015     

Replacement of CH4 in Hydrate in Porous Sediments with Liquid CO2 Injection

The dynamics of the replacement of CH₄ in hydrate in porous sediments with liquid CO₂ was investigated using a self‐developed experimental apparatus at different temperatures and initial pressures. The pressure increases steadily as the replacement reaction processes. The amount of the replaced CH₄ is almost the same as that of the CO₂ forming hydrate in the early stage and gradually becomes somewhat less in the later stage. The initial pressure has minor effects on the replacement rate, and temperature reduction causes a lower replacement rate. The experimental results suggest that the replacement rate is not related to the region of the temperature‐pressure conditions but is mainly affected by the fugacity differences of CH₄ hydrate decomposition and CO₂ hydrate formation.     

Extraction of methane hydrate energy by carbon dioxide injection-key challenges and a paradigm shift

Significant effort including field work has been devoted to develop a natural gas extraction technology from natural gas hydrate reservoirs through the injection of carbon dioxide. Natural gas hydrate is practically methane hydrate. The hypothesis is that carbon dioxide will be stored as hydrate owing to its favorable stability conditions compared to methane hydrate. Although the dynamics of the CO₂/CH₄ exchange process are not entirely understood it is established that the exchange process is feasible. The extent is limited but even if the CH₄ recovery is optimized there is a need for a CH₄/CO₂ separation plant to enable a complete cyclic sequence of CO₂ capture, injection and CH₄ recovery. In this paper we propose an alternative paradigm to the Inject (CO₂)/Exchange with (CH₄)/Recover (CH₄) one namely Recover (CH₄) first and then Inject (CO₂) for Storage.     

The status of exploitation techniques of natural gas hydrate

Natural gas hydrate (NGH) has been widely considered as an alternative form of energy with huge potential, due to its tremendous reserves, cleanness and high energy density. Several countries involving Japan, Canada, India and China have launched national projects on the exploration and exploitation of gas hydrate resources. At the beginning of this century, an early trial production of hydrate resources was carried out in Mallik permafrost region, Canada. Japan has conducted the first field test from marine hydrates in 2013, followed by another trial in 2017. China also made its first trial production from marine hydrate sediments in 2017. Yet the low production efficiency, ice/hydrate regeneration, and sand problems are still commonly encountered; the worldwide progress is far before commercialization. Up to now, many gas production techniques have been proposed, and a few of them have been adopted in the field production tests. Nevertheless, hardly any method appears really promising; each of them shows limitations at certain conditions. Therefore, further efforts should be made on the economic efficiency as well as sustainability and environmental impacts. In this paper, the investigations on NGH exploitation techniques are comprehensively reviewed, involving depressurization, thermal stimulation, chemical inhibitor injection, CO₂–CH₄ exchange, their combinations, and some novel techniques. The behavior of each method and its further potential in the field test are discussed. The advantages and limitations of laboratory studies are also analyzed. The work could give some guidance in the future formulation of exploitation scheme and evaluation of gas production behavior from hydrate reservoirs.     

Impact of water film thickness on kinetic rate of mixed hydrate formation during injection of CO2 into CH4 hydrate

In this work, nonequilibrium thermodynamics and phase field theory (PFT) has been applied to study the kinetics of phase transitions associated with CO₂ injection into systems containing CH₄ hydrate, free CH₄ gas, and varying amounts of liquid water. The CH₄ hydrate was converted into either pure CO₂ or mixed CO₂?CH₄ hydrate to investigate the impact of two primary mechanisms governing the relevant phase transitions: solid‐state mass transport through hydrate and heat transfer away from the newly formed CO₂ hydrate. Experimentally proven dependence of kinetic conversion rate on the amount of available free pore water was investigated and successfully reproduced in our model systems. It was found that rate of conversion was directly proportional to the amount of liquid water initially surrounding the hydrate. When all of the liquid has been converted into either CO₂ or mixed CO₂?CH₄ hydrate, a much slower solid‐state mass transport becomes the dominant mechanism. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 3944–3957, 2015     

Effect of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> concentration on the performance of different thermodynamic models for prediction of CH<Subscript>4</Subscript>+CO<Subscript>2</Subscript>+H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O hydrate equilibrium conditions

Accurate prediction of phase equilibria regarding CH₄ replacement in hydrate phase with high pressure CO₂ is an important issue in modern reservoir engineering. In this work we investigate the possibility of establishing a thermodynamic framework for predicting the hydrate equilibrium conditions for evaluation of CO₂ injection scenarios. Different combinations of equations of state and mixing rules are applied and the most accurate thermodynamic models at different CO₂ concentration ranges are proposed.     

In situ injection of THF to trigger gas hydrate crystallization: Application to the evaluation of a kinetic hydrate promoter

This paper investigates an original method to efficiently trigger gas hydrate crystallization. This method consists of an in situ injection of a small amount of THF into an aqueous phase in contact with a gas-hydrate-former phase at pressure and temperature conditions inside the hydrate metastable zone. In the presence of a CO₂–CH₄ gas mixture, our results show that the THF injection induces immediate crystallization of a first hydrate containing THF. This triggers the formation of the CO₂–CH₄ binary hydrate as proven by the pressure and temperature reached at equilibrium. This experimental method, which “cancels out” the stochasticity of the hydrate crystallization, was used to evaluate the effect of the anionic surfactant SDS at different concentrations, on the formation kinetics of the CO₂–CH₄ hydrate. The results are discussed and compared with those published in a recent article (Ricaurte et al., 2013), where THF was not injected but present in the aqueous phase from the beginning and at much higher concentrations.     

Phase and kinetic behavior of the mixed methane and carbon dioxide hydrates

Large amounts of CH₄ are stored as hydrates on continental margins and permafrost regions. If the CH₄ hydrates could be converted into CO₂ hydrate, they would serve double duty as CH₄ sources and CO₂ storage sites in the deep ocean sediments. As preliminary investigations, both the phase behavior of CH₄ hydrates and kinetic behavior of CO₂ hydrate were measured at versatile conditions that can simulate actual marine sediments. When measuring three-phase equilibria (H-LW-V) containing CH₄ hydrate, we also closely examined pore and electrolyte effects of clay and NaCl on hydrate formation. These two effects inhibited hydrate nucleation and thus made the hydrate equilibrium line shift to a higher pressure region. In addition, the kinetic data of CO₂ hydrate in the mixtures containing clay and NaCl were determined at 2.0 MPa and 274.15 K. Clay mineral accelerated an initial formation rate of CO₂ hydrate by inducing nucleation as initiator, but total amount of formed CO₂, of course, decreased due to the capillary effect of clay pores. Also, the addition of NaCl in sample mixtures made both initial formation rate and total amount of CO₂ consumption decrease.     

Molecular dynamics study on growth of carbon dioxide and methane hydrate from a seed crystal

In the current work, molecular dynamics simulation is employed to understand the intrinsic growth of carbon dioxide and methane hydrate starting from a seed crystal of methane and carbon dioxide respectively. This comparison was carried out because it has relevance to the recovery of methane gas from natural gas hydrate reservoirs by simultaneously sequestering a greenhouse gas like CO₂. The seed crystal of carbon dioxide and methane hydrate was allowed to grow from a super-saturated mixture of carbon dioxide or methane molecules in water respectively. Two different concentrations (1:6 and 1:8.5) of CO₂/CH₄ molecules per water molecule were chosen based on gas–water composition in hydrate phase. The molecular level growth as a function of time was investigated by all atomistic molecular dynamics simulation under suitable temperature and pressure range which was well above the hydrate stability zone to ensure significantly faster growth kinetics. The concentration of CO₂ molecules in water played a significant role in growth kinetics, and it was observed that maximizing the CO₂ concentration in the aqueous phase may not result in faster growth of CO₂ hydrate. On the contrary, methane hydrate growth was independent of methane molecule concentration in the aqueous phase. We have validated our results by performing experimental work on carbon dioxide hydrate where it was seen that under conditions appropriate for liquid CO₂, the growth for carbon dioxide hydrate was very slow in the beginning.