Hydrate Challenges for the Future Reversible and

5 Hydrate Challenges for the Future Reversible and Irreversible Thermodynamics 

As we deplete the readily accessible natural gas reserves, we will encounter conditions that are both more remote and more severe. We will be challenged to explore deep ocean environments with higher pressures, permafrost environments with lower temperatures, and gases that were previously considered non-economical, such as those containing non-combustible components of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. Such unusual conditions also stretch the applicability limits of hydrate phase equilibrium thermodynamics. 

the largest future challenge goes beyond time-independent descriptions, to irreversible thermodynamics, or kinetics. We know very little about a kinetic mechanism founded on hydrate measurements. Due to the stochastic nature of nucleation, experimentalists have dealt with the deterministic growth process. 

Kinetic measurements are changing from macroscopic to microscopic scales. Initially, kinetics consisted of macroscopic measurements of the fluid phases associated with hydrates - such as gas consumption rates or liquid turbidity, fundamentally in Bishnoi s laboratory.Subsequently, mesoscopic measurements of hydrate cry-stais, -82 particle size distribution, and film growth rates are available. Microscopic kinetic hydrate phase measurements are emerging. A review of microscopic hydrate science for both kinetics and thermodynamics is presented by 

To borrow Churchill s phrase, proving such hydrate phase kinetics measurement principles represents the end of the beginning for time-dependent experiments. The systematic kinetic study to generate a fundamental mechanism of hydrate nucleation and growth constitutes the major remaining challenge in hydrate physico-chemical science. 

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