• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.71-84
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• 2013

Most gas hydrates (GH) occur in ocean sediments. Global GH reserves are estimated to be $10^{13}{\sim}20{\times}10^{15}m^3$, which is nearly 1,000 times the amount of current world energy consumption. Methane hydrate (MH) has the potential to be developed into future natural gas resources to replace traditional oil and gas resources, and thus MH production technologies such as depressurization, inhibitor injection, thermal stimulation, and $CO_2-CH_4$ substitution need to be further developed. MH production, which is expected to be in test production until 2014 in Korea, is focused on the development of GH production technologies for use in the commercial production of methane gas. This study compares MH production technology and its ability to meet the twin goals of being both effective and environmentally friendly while taking into consideration the complex phenomena of GH decomposition.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.666-671
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• 2012

Gas hydrates are inclusion compounds formed when small-sized guest molecules are incorporated into the well defined cages made up of hydrogen bonded water molecules. Since large masses of natural gas hydrates exist in permafrost regions or beneath deep oceans, these naturally occurring gas hydrates in the earth containing mostly $CH_4$ are regarded as future energy resources. The heat of dissociation is one of the most important thermal properties in exploiting natural gas hydrates. The accurate and direct method to measure the dissociation enthalpies of gas hydrates is to use a calorimeter. In this study, the high pressure micro DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimeter) was used to measure the dissociation enthalpies of methane, ethane, and propane hydrates. The accuracy and repeatability of the data obtained from the DSC was confirmed by measuring the dissociation enthalpy of ice. The dissociation enthalpies of methane, ethane, and propane hydrates were found to be 54.2, 73.8, and 127.7 kJ/mol-gas, respectively. For each gas hydrate, at given pressures the dissociation temperatures which were obtained in the process of enthalpy measurement were compared with three-phase (hydrate (H) - liquid water (Lw) - vapor (V)) equilibrium data in the literature and found to be in good agreement with literature values.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.37-42
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• 2019

Hydrate dissociation is required to produce methane, which generates both water and methane. Thus, multiphase fluid flow and desalination are expected during methane production, which causes the fine migration and clogging in pores. The goal of this study is to explore the effects of both multiphase fluid flow and desalination on the migration and clogging of kaolin particles as typical fines. The results are as follows : (1) the larger the pore size is, the more mounting the critical clogging concentration is, (2) kaolin particles are more easily clustering and clogging in deionized water than salty water, and (3) the critical clogging concentration of kaolin in multiphase fluid flow is lower than in singlephase fluid flow. Therefore, clustering and clogging of kaolin within pore occur easily due to desalination and multiphase fluid flow when methane is produced from hydrates, and the efficiency of methane production is expected to decrease due to the degradation of permeability coefficient.

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.7 no.1_2 s.8
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• pp.1-6
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• 1999

Natural gas hydrate, a solid compound of natural gas (mainly methane) and water in the low temperature and high pressure, is widely distributed in permafrost region and deep sea sediments. Gas hydrate stability field (GHSF), which corresponds to the conditions of a stable existence of solid gas hydrate without dissociation, depends on temperature, pressure, and composition of gas and interstitial water. Gas hydrate-saturated sediment are easily recognized by the bottom simulating reflector (BSR), a strong-amplitude sea bottom-mimic reflector in seismic profiles. It is known that BSR is associated with the basal boundary of the GHSF, The purpose of this study is to define the GHSF and its occurrence in the southwestern part of Ulleung Basin, East Sea. The hydrothermal gradient is measured using the expandable bathythermograph (XBT) and the geothermal gradient data are utilized from previous drilling results for the adjacent area. By the laboratory work using methane and NaCl $3.0 wt{\%}$ solution, it is shown that the equilibrium pressures of the gas hydrate reach to 2,920.2 kPa at 274.15 K and to 18,090 kPa at 289.95 K for the study area. Consequently, it is interpreted that the lower boundary of the GHSF is about 210 m beneath 400-m-deep sea bottom and about 480 m beneath 1,100-m-deep sea bottom. The resultant boundary is well matched with the depth of the BSR obtained from the seismic data analysis for the study area.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2016

In this paper, we perform a numerical analysis to evaluate the potential of fault reactivation during gas production from hydrate bearing sediments and the moment magnitude of induced seismicity. For the numerical analysis, sequential coupling of TOUGH+Hydrate and FLAC3D was used and the change in effective stress and consequent geomechanical deformation including fault reactivation was simulated by assuming that Mohr-Coulomb shear resistance criterion is valid. From the test production simulation of 30 days, we showed that pore pressure reduction as well as effective stress change hardly induces the fault reactivation in the vicinity of a production well. We also investigated the influence of stress state conditions to a fault reactivation, and showed that normal fault stress regime, where vertical stress is relatively greater than horizontal, may have the largest potential for the reactivation. We tested one simulation that earthquake can be induced during gas production and calculated the moment magnitude of the seismicity. Our calculation presented that all the magnitudes from the calculation were negative values, which indicates that induced earthquakes can be grouped into micro-seismic and as small as hardly perceived by human beings. However, it should be noted that the current simulation was carried out using the highly simplified geometric model and assumptions such that the further simulations for a scheduled test production and commercial scale production considering complex geometric conditions may produce different results.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.353-357
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• 2017

In this study, the inclusion phenomena of tetrahydrofuran + 3-hydroxytetrahydrofuran + $CH_4$ clathrate hydrates were explored via thermodynamic and spectroscopic approaches. The phase equilibria of the double hydrates - THF + $CH_4$ and 3-OH THF + $CH_4$ clathrate hydrates - were determined by pressure-temperature trace during hydrate formation and dissociation, and the result revealed that the equilibrium pressures were shifted to lower pressure region compared to pure $CH_4$ hydrate. The powder X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that the double hydrates of THF + 3-OH THF formed structure II type clathrate hydrates with $CH_4$. The dispersive Raman spectra of the double clathrate hydrates also exhibited that $CH_4$ can be trapped in both $5^{12}6^4$ and $5^{12}$ cages whereas THF and 3-OH THF were encaged in $5^{12}6^4$ cage.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.304-309
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• 2007

In this study, the "Multi Well Plate-type cell Apparatus" was designed and setup for performing the producing experiments of methane hydrate by depressurization, heat stimulating methods. In order to characterizing the producing mechanism of hydrate through porous materials, the experiments for various producing methods have been conducted with the aid of the apparatus which has high permeability. In the experimental result of depressurization method, the pressure is temporarily increased unlikely conventional gas reservoir due to the sourcing effect of hydrate dissociation in the pore. Meanwhile, the temperature is decreased because of the endothermic reaction while hydrate is dissociated. In the experimental results of heat stimulating method, the dissociation in depressurization method is more slowly processed than that in thermal method, and hence, its gas production is lower. In the case of production right after heating, hydrate is dissociated only near injecting point and the permeability becomes greater at that area only. It infers that the more gas is produced during relatively earlier producing period. Since then, the hydrate is more slowly dissociated than the case of production after heating and soaking. This time, the performances of pressure and production obtained by thermal method have been analyzed in order to investigate the effect of soaking time on gas recovery. As a result, the gas recoveries in the case of 2 min and 4 min soaking are higher than case in 6 min soaking. This is reason that hydrate is reformed due to the decrease of temperature. It is expected that the experimental results obtained in this work may be more clearly explained by utilizing the lower permeable porous system with the greater hydrate saturation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.259-264
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• 2008

• 한국가스학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.09a
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• pp.215-220
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• 2000

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2010

Gas hydrates are solid solutions when water molecules are linked through hydrogen bonding and create host lattice cavities that can enclose many kinds of guest(gas) molecules. There are plenty of methane(gas) hydrate in the earth and distributed widely at offshore and permafrost. Several schemes, to produce methane hydrates, have been studied. In this study, depressurization method has been utilized for the numerical model due to it's simplicity and effectiveness. IMPES method has been used for numerical analysis to get the saturation and velocity profile of each phase and pressure profile, velocity of dissociation front progress and the quantity of produced gas. The values calculated for the sample length of 10m, show that methane hydrates has been dissolved completely in approximately 223 minutes and the velocity of dissociation front progress is 3.95㎝ per minute. The volume ratio of the produced gas in the porous media is found to be about 50%. Analysing the saturation profile and the velocity profile from the numerical results, the permeability of each phase in porous media is considered to be the most important factor in the two phase flow propagation. Consequently, permeability strongly influences the productivity of gas in porous media for methane hydrates.