Vapor–hydrate two-phase and vapor–liquid–hydrate three-phase equilibrium calculation of THF/CH4/N2 hydrates

Tetrahydrofuran (THF) is a popular thermodynamic promotor for gas hydrates. Nonetheless, the phase equilibrium calculations of THF hydrates are limited given the abundant experimental data. In this work, we successfully applied the Chen–Guo hydrate model to the THF/CH4/N2 system with different compositions of CH4/N2 gas mixtures. In consideration of various reaction conditions, we proposed the vapor–hydrate two-phase and vapor–liquid–hydrate three-phase models for the equilibrium separations of THF/CH4/N2 via hydrate formation. The hydrate formation condition and equilibrium separation of CH4/N2 in 6mol% THF solution were calculated and compared with experimental results. The average absolute relative deviations between the experimental and calculated data for hydrate formation pressure and equilibrium separation compositions are 6.86% and 7.56%, respectively. This demonstrates that the Chen–Guo model has relatively high accuracy for the equilibrium calculation of THF/CH4/N2 hydrates. This work provides an effective approach to predict the thermodynamic phase behavior of hydrates containing promotors or inhibitors.