Jitendra Sangwai

Energy is an essential commodity for the survival and socioeconomic development of the human race. The energy supply sector primarily comprises of industrial, commercial, and domestic applications. The foremost challenges faced by the energy supply sector are growing consumption levels, limited accessibility, environmental concerns, viz-a-viz, climate change, and pollution of water and air resources. As conventional resources of energy have started to decline and are expected to get exhausted by 2040, the main focus has been shifted to unconventional sources [1]. In this category, natural gas resources such as gas hydrate, shale gas, coal bed methane will provide tremendous potential for meeting the demand. Gas hydrates are ice-like crystalline substance formed by a framework of water and natural gas molecules. Recent exploration programs by various agencies such as United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Gas Hydrate Program (India), Japanese Methane Gas Hydrate R&D have proved that massive amount of gas hydrate deposits lying across marine settings and permafrost environments. Hydrate deposits are currently estimated to be 5 × 1015 m3 of methane gas [2]. If this untapped resource of energy becomes feasible for the economic production, it could increase natural gas reserves to multifold. Moreover, this would be considerably greater than the total amount of all fossil fuels together. As reported by USGS, gas hydrates hold more than 50% of the entire world’s carbon. It has been estimated that commercial production of methane from 15% of natural gas hydrate can fulfill the energy requirement of the entire world for next 200 years [3]. Hence, natural gas hydrates are considered to be the vital sustainable energy resource. Many pilot production tests have been completed and are underway to recover methane from gas hydrate deposit across the world [4]. Preliminary studies and pilot tests have shown promising results in terms of methane recovery from natural gas hydrates by employing methods such as thermal stimulation, depressurization, inhibitor injection. Ongoing gas hydrate research programs throughout the world and advances in technology will certainly help to cater any technical challenges in order to potentially harness the huge amount of energy stored in the form of natural gas hydrates.

The measurement of the rheological properties of gas hydrate slurries necessitates the high pressure rheometer that can provide a proper mixing inside the pressure cell during hydrate formation from two multiphase fluids, water and gas. However, the hydrate formation is highly challenging in conventional cup and bob geometry due to its plane surface. To overcome this, the present work focuses on the study of high pressure rheology for hydrate slurries formed from water-heptane (C7H16) system using a high pressure cell in Anton-Paar® (MCR-52) rheometer and a modified Couette geometry which enables the measurement of rheological studies of multiphase hydrate system. It was observed that the hydrate slurries exhibit shear thinning behavior. The present study provides an important information about the rheology of methane hydrate slurries formed from multiphase systems for flow assurance applications.