Hydrate equilibrium data of multicomponent systems in the presence of structure-II and structure-H heavy hydrate formers

The effect of six newly discovered heavy hydrate-forming compounds on the hydrate phase boundary of a gas mixture, a natural gas, and a model oil has been measured. The study, which is a continuation of a previous work,(1) investigates the effect of cyclopentane, cyclohexane, neopentane, isopentane, methyl cyclopentane, and methylcyclohexane at various concentrations. The first three compounds form structure-II hydrates, while the last three compounds are known to promote structure-II hydrates. The experimental hydrate dissociation data have been successfully predicted by the use of a thermodynamic model. The results show that structure-II is the stable hydrate structure for the systems investigated at various heavy hydrate former concentrations (from 0.27 mol % to 59.66 mol %). Also, the structure-II heavy hydrate formers promoted structure-II hydrate formation whereas the structure-II heavy hydrate formers (at the concentrations used) did not change the stable hydrate structure to structure-H and hence inhibited hydrate formation in the above fluid systems. On the basis of the above study, it was concluded that the inclusion of structure-II heavy hydrate formers in the thermodynamic modeling would improve the reliability of hydrate-free zone predictions in real reservoir fluids.