| Summary: | Hydrate-based technologies possess great application potential in the industrial field, including gas storage, transportation, capture, and separation. However, the slow kinetics of hydrate formation hinders its commercial utility. The widespread use of porous media and surfactants in promoting the kinetics of hydrate formation has been accompanied by an increasing interest in understanding how they affect hydrate formation. In this paper, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was used to compound with three kinds of porous media (glass beads, inert alumina, and activated alumina), with average particle sizes of 1, 3, and 5 mm, to investigate the influence of particle sizes and kinds of porous media on hydrate formation. The results showed that the smaller the particle size of porous media, the more obvious the promotion effect is. Among the three complex systems, there is a significant induction period in the activated alumina system, and the average induction time is about 6 times that of the other systems. However, the formation rate and gas storage capacity of the hydrate are the highest in the activated alumina system. Abundant surface micropores and unique surface charge distribution are very important. Finally, different solution distributions in the reactor resulted in different hydrate distributions, and the nucleation location was vital for hydrate formation and occurrence. Hydrate shells were found to grow on the surface of activated alumina particles, which was not reported in previous studies. This study provides a new view for the study of hydrate morphologies in the complex system of porous media and surfactants.
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