Investigation of the Influence of Hydroxyl Groups on Gas Hydrate Formation at Pipeline-Like Conditions

Clathrates of natural gases, also called “gas hydrates”, are ice-like solids made up of water and gas molecules. They have become increasingly interesting in science and industry in the last decades, because of their potential as an energetic resource as well as because of their ability to block and damage pipelines (so-called “plugging”) under certain conditions. The mechanism of hydrate formation, however, is not fully explored yet, especially regarding the formation in the presence of substances other than gas and water molecules. Therefore, in this paper, the influence of substances with OH-molecular groups on methane hydrate formation has been thoroughly investigated in high-pressure experiments.