The paper presents an experimental investigation on formation rate of methane hydrates. The aim of this study is development of production plant of natural gas hydrates. Formation rate of methane hydrates under constant pressure, which is considered to be suitable condition in the continuous formation process, was obtained by this experiment. In this paper, driving force for hydrate growth under the condition is defined by the supercooling at higher stirring rate. It is also shown that experimental pressure depends on formation kinetics.
Natural gas hydrates are expected as unconventional natural gas resources because the amount is estimated at rich by worldwide distribution. One of the characteristics of hydrates is a high accumulation of gases. Therefore the usage of gas hydrate can be a new way of transportation and storage. In respect of the transportation and storage by using gas hydrate, object of the process is not only natural gas digged as hydrate but also as conventional gas state. It is necessary to develop the technology to produce rapidly natural gas hydrate in large quantities and also the technology of re-gasification. Consequently, the investigation about formation rate and dissociation rate of gas hydrate is important for industrialization. The formation apparatus of gas hydrate in laboratories are usually batch process that certain amount of gas and water are enclosed in a reaction vessel in advance. For industrial usage such that the production plant of natural gas hydrate, continuous process is indispensable. Therefore a semi-batch apparatus which could continuously supply gas during the formation period was used in order to obtain the formation rate of gas hydrate, In this paper, hydrate from methane gas was studied as a fundamental investigation since methane is a major content of natural gases.
