(72e) Mass Transfer during Hydrate Formation in Water-Oil-Gas System

In order to understand the micro-mechanism of hydrate formation in W/O emulsion system, we investigated the effect of hydrate formation on the water-oil interface of water-oil-gas system. Liquid water, oil and methane gas were injected into a capillary tube separately, forming water-oil and oil-gas interface. At temperature of 2°C and pressure of 20MPa, the hydrate formation was stimulated at different locations of water part in the capillary tube. The results show that the oil near the water-oil interface enters into the water, even forms an oil chain in the water phase, and the original interface was destroyed. This phenomena can be attributed to pressure difference and methane concentration difference near the interface induced by hydrate formation. A mass transfer model is built to describe the procedure.