Investigation of Polystyrene/SDBS Effect on Methane Hydrate Formation in Presence of Zinc Nanoparticles

To improve the basic indexes of the hydrate formation process, , a proposed hybrid structure was used in this study, and a surface behavior engineering has been implemented to synthesize and select the components of it. The main agent of this structure is SDBS, a surfactant which has been selected as the driving factor for the dissolution stage. In this structure, zinc metal nanoparticles were stabilized to increase the efficiency of the hydrate growth stage and the polystyrene has been layered to provide an ideal and flexible nanoparticle and control the foam formation. The polymer layer, while capable of significantly reducing the amount of foam formation and decreasing the instability of the system during gas decomposition, provides a bridge between the carboxyl functional groups for bonding the zinc nanoparticles to the surfactant. Thus, polymer layer for surfactants makes them susceptible to industrial applications in the storage and especially release of hydrate from the gas. Experimental evidences also suggest that using a fluid containing a low concentration of the proposed composite structure can reduce the hydrate formation time by up to a quarter, and also double the volume of gas storage. These results are very attractive to use this engineered structure in industrial scale and its quantities are suggested.