Methane Hydrate in Confined Spaces: An Alternative Storage System

Abstract

Methane hydrate inheres the great potential to be a nature-inspired alternative for chemical energy storage, as it allows to store large amounts of methane in a dense solid phase. The embedment of methane hydrate in the confined environment of porous materials can be capitalized for potential applications as its physicochemical properties, such as the formation kinetics or pressure and temperature stability, are significantly changed compared to the bulk system. We review this topic from a materials scientific perspective by considering porous carbons, silica, clays, zeolites, and polymers as host structures for methane hydrate formation. We discuss the contribution of advanced characterization techniques and theoretical simulations towards the elucidation of the methane hydrate formation and dissociation process within the confined space. We outline the scientific challenges this system is currently facing and look on possible future applications for this technology.

Supramolecular Organization in Confined Nanospaces

“…As also evidenced by the presented examples, the information obtained by molecular simulation has already contributed to design host‐guest materials with improved optical properties . The integration between experiment and theory is particularly advanced in clathrate hydrate research, favoring progress also in the emerging field of confined hydrates ,. Calculations have become important to characterize disordered systems such as zeolite‐metal clusters compounds, and the progress of multiscale modeling has helped to broaden length and time scales in simulation.…”

Clathrate hydrates: recent advances on CH4 and CO2 hydrates, and possible new frontiers

“…It is likely that these effects are strongly dependent on the chemical nature of the solid surface, as well as on pressure-temperature-composition conditions. Borchardt et al 136 recently reviewed experimental, theoretical and simulations studies conducted on the topic of hydrates formation in confined spaces.…”

Promotion of Activated Carbon on the Nucleation and Growth Kinetics of Methane Hydrates

“…25 nm (Borchardt et al, 2016 ). Ultimately, each kind of AC is unique, so its physical and chemical properties must be evaluated in detail before application, and more efficient AC with appropriate size distribution, pore width, surface properties, etc., should be designed and fabricated to improve hydrate formation kinetics and methane storage capacity (Borchardt et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Therefore, due to high specific surface area and abundant pore texture, various porous media were reported to significantly enhance hydrate formation kinetics. Typical examples include molecular sieves (Zhou et al, 2005a ; Zhong et al, 2016 ; Liu et al, 2018 ; Zhao et al, 2018 ), carbon nanotubes (Park et al, 2010 ; Zhao et al, 2014 ), graphite nanoparticles (Zhou et al, 2014 ; Yu et al, 2016 , 2018 ), MOFs (Mu et al, 2012 ; Casco et al, 2016 ), and activated carbon (Zhou et al, 2002 , 2005b , 2010 ; Perrin et al, 2004 ; Sun et al, 2007 ; Babu et al, 2013 ; Borchardt et al, 2018 ). Impressively, when AC was used, a short or even no induction period was commonly observed (Casco et al, 2015 ; Borchardt et al, 2016 ; Cuadrado-Collados et al, 2018 ), and water can be completely converted to hydrates within 2 h, accompanied with high methane storage capacity (~200 V/V) (Zhang et al, 2020 ).…”