Prediction of induction time for natural gas components during gas hydrate formation in the presence of kinetic hydrate inhibitors in a flow mini‐loop apparatus

The objective of this work is the prediction of induction time (t_i) for simple gas hydrate formation in the presence or absence of kinetic hydrate inhibitors at various conditions based on the Kashchiev and Firoozabadi model in a flow mini‐loop apparatus. For this purpose, the t_i model is developed for simple gas hydrate formation in batch system for natural gas components during hydrate formation in a flow mini‐loop apparatus. A laboratory flow mini‐loop apparatus is designed and built up to measure the t_i for simple gas hydrate formation when a hydrate former (such as C₁, C₃, CO₂ and i‐C₄) is contacted with water in the absence or presence of dissolved inhibitor, such as poly vinylpyrrolidone, PVCap and L ‐tyrosine. In each experiment, a water blend saturated with pure gas is circulated up to a required pressure. Pressure is maintained at a constant value during experimental runs by means of the required gas make‐up. The average absolute deviation (AAD) of the predicted t_i values from the corresponding experimental data are found to be about 11% and 9.4% for gas hydrate formation t_i in the presence or absence of kinetic hydrate inhibitors, respectively. © 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering