Tailoring gas hydrate lattice dimensions for enhanced methane selectivity in biogas upgrading

Abstract

Gas hydrates, specifically clathrate hydrates, have emerged as a potential separation medium for biogas containing methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). However, the efficient separation of CH4 and CO2 remains challenging due to their similar cage occupation behavior within the hydrate structure. This study aimed to enhance CH4 selectivity by modifying the hydrate lattice to exclude CO2 from large cages and reduce the size of small cages through lattice engineering. To achieve this, tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) and trimethylene oxide (TMO) were employed as thermodynamic promoters, inducing strong and weak cage expansion, respectively. The results revealed that TMO hydrates, with their weak cage expansion, exhibited improved CH4 selectivity compared to TBA hydrates, which displayed strong cage expansion due to the larger size of TBA. Multi-stage separation experiments demonstrated that TMO hydrates required four unit stages, while TBA hydrates necessitated more than five unit stages to obtain purified CH4 (> 85%) from an initial gas mixture of CH4 (50%) and CO2 (50%). Additionally, TMO hydrates consistently exhibited higher separation factors than TBA hydrates in all unit stages. The findings emphasize the influence of the thermodynamic promoter's size on the separation performance of gas hydrates in separating CH4 from CH4 + CO2 mixtures. The study provides valuable insights into enhancing CH4 selectivity through lattice engineering and offers guidance in selecting suitable thermodynamic promoters for gas hydrate-based biogas upgrading applications.