Hydrate formation from gaseous CO2 and water

Economics of creating CO2 hydrate on a large scale favor use of gaseous rat her than liquid CO2 as input to the production process. We accordingly stud ied systems using deionized water and CO2 gas to reduce formation pressures and costs of hydrate production to the greatest extent possible. Three res earch avenues were explored: utilization of hysteresis effects, use of diss olved Snomax (a protein from the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae), and devel opment of a continuous flow reactor (cfr) utilizing vigorous mixing of wate r and CO2 gas. Hysteresis effects produced pressure reductions of 14-50%. W e demonstrated a method of transferring benefits from the hysteresis effect to a CO2 water mixture that had not yet undergone hydrate formation. Snoma x at 10 ppm by weight produced about a 5% reduction in hydrate formation pr essure. We designed and operated a prototype cfr with partial success at pr oducing CO2 hydrate. The hydrate phase diagram is based on hydrate decompos ition pressures and should not be used as an indicator of formation pressur es.