Tetra-n-Butyl Ammonium Bromide (TBAB) forms semi-clathrate hydrates which can incorporate small gas molecules, such as methane and nitrogen at ambient temperatures and atmospheric pressure. Such favourable stability conditions, combined with ease of formation could make semi-clathrates particularly attractive for a large variety of applications. These hydrates have recently been investigated for their use in the separation of gases, and it is proposed that the same technology could potentially be used for storage and transportation of gases. To evaluate the feasibility of using TBAB hydrates for separation and storage purposes, an extensive test programme was conducted to determine: phase stability of the semi-clathrates, gas storage capacity, and composition of the stored gas. The results show that TBAB semi-clathrates have very favourable stability conditions. They can store considerable quantities of gas, and favour small molecules in their structures. These experiments suggest that semi-clathrate hydrates, such as TBAB, could have a significant potential as an alternative for industrial separation, storage, and transportation of natural gas.

Ultraviolet-visible spectra are presented for a polycrystalline sample of chlorine clathrate hydrate and two single crystal samples of bromine clathrate hydrate. The data shows that the UV-visible spectroscopy is a sensitive probe for studying the interactions between the halogen guest molecule and the host water lattice. The spectrum for chlorine hydrate shows a surprisingly strong temperature dependence. The spectra reported for bromine clathrate hydrate single crystals reinforce our previous conclusion that there is a stable cubic type II structure as well as the tetragonal structure. There is also a metastable cubic type I structure. The new results are discussed in the context of previous results, resonance Raman spectroscopy, and how the molecules fit into the host cages.

The current theoretical understanding of thermodynamics of clathrate hydrates is based on the van der Waals and Plattew (vdWP) theory developed using statistical thermodynamics approach. vdWP theory has been widely used to predict the phase equilibrium of clathrate hydrates over the decades. However, earlier studies have shown that this success could be due to the presence of a large number of parameters. In this thesis, a systematic and a rigorous analysis of vdWP theory is per-formed with the help of Monte Carlo molecular simulations for methane hydrate. The analysis revealed that long range guest-water interactions and guest-guest interactions are important, Monte Carlo integration to is superior to the spherical shell approximation for the Langmuir constant calculation and even after inclusion of all the interactions and using Monte Carlo integration for Langmuir constant, the vdWP theory still fails to regress parameters correctly. This failure of vdWP theory is attributed to the rigid water lattice approximation. To address the rigid water lattice approximation, a new method is proposed. In the proposed method, the Langmuir constant is computed in flexible water lattice, by considering the movement of water molecules. The occupancy values predicted using the proposed method are in excellent agreement with the values obtained from Monte Carlo molecular simulations for variety of hydrates, methane, ethane, carbon dioxide and tetrahydrofuran(THF) hydrates . In addition to small guest molecules like methane, ethane etc. which are mod- heled as rigid, the method is extended for large guest molecules like propane and isobutane, using configurationally bias Monte Carlo method. The phase equilib-rium and occupancy along the phase equilibrium predictions from vdWP theory are compared with the exact phase equilibrium computed from Monte Carlo molecular simulations. This comparison is done for a wide variety of hydrate systems, single hydrates , binary hydrates and quaternary hydrate. In all the cases, the vdWP theory with the flexible water lattice showed significant improvement over the rigid lattice model with significantly less absolute relative deviations in pressure. Guest-cavity interactions for hydrates are calculated using abinitio calculations. In general, these guest-cavity interaction from first principle calculations are used to develop classical force field parameters in alternative to Lorentz-Berthelot rule. In the study, comparison of guest-cavity interactions from MP2 and CCSD(T) methods revealed that less expensive MP2 method, which is generally used, is insouciant to capture the dispersion interactions accurately. These guest-cavity interactions using CCSD(T) method extrapolated to complete basis set are used to model the interaction parameters between cyclopropane and water. The potential parameters obtained from ab-initio calculations are used in the calculation of Langmuir constant using vdWP theory. Langmuir constant calculated using vdWP theory with flexible water lattice gave close agreement with the values obtained from experimental occupancy data. In addition, simulation methodology to calculate ternary hydrate phase equilibrium is extended for binary hydrates. Simulations have been successful in the prediction of sIsII and sII-sI structural transitions as observed in experiments. Predicted methane-ethane binary hydrate is also compared with the available experimental phase equilibrium data. The phase equilibrium obtained from simulations showed very good qualitative agreement with the experimental data.

L’activité scientifique du sujet porte sur l’acquisition de données expérimentales et la modélisation de la composition des clathrates hydrates de gaz. Les domaines d’application concernent la séparation et le stockage de gaz, la purification de l’eau, et le stockage d’énergie par matériaux à changement de phase.L’équipe a mis en évidence il y a quelques années que la composition des hydrates de gaz était sensible aux conditions de cristallisation, et que le phénomène de formation se produisait en dehors de l’équilibre thermodynamique.Le travail de thèse a permis d’explorer plusieurs modes de cristallisation à partir de solutions de même composition initiale pour observer les différences concernant l’état final, compositions notamment, et les relier à la vitesse de cristallisation. Suivant le mode de cristallisation, lent ou rapide, l’acquisition des données expérimentales peut prendre de quelques jours à plusieurs semaines. Les expériences sont réalisées en réacteur pressurisé dans lequel nous mesurons en ligne la composition de la phase gaz et de la phase liquide, pour calculer par bilan de matière la composition de la phase hydrate.Nous avons bien mis en évidence des variations dans la composition de la phase hydrate suivant le mode de cristallisation. Nous avons dû établir un modèle thermodynamique donnant la composition de la phase hydrate à l’équilibre pour des mélanges de gaz qui n’avaient jamais été traité par la littérature, et qui ont donc nécessité des campagnes de mesure extrêmement lentes et donc longues pour être sûr de l’état thermodynamique à l’équilibre.Nous sommes en cours d’établir un modèle cinétique pour modéliser les écarts à cet état d’équilibre de référence pour nos expériences réalisées à vitesse de cristallisation rapide. / The scientific goal of this thesis is based on the acquisition of experimental data and the modeling of the composition of clathrates gas hydrate. The domains of application concern the gas separation and storage, water purification, and energy storage using change phase materials (PCMs).Our research team has recently demonstrated that the composition of gas hydrates was sensitive to the crystallization conditions, and that the phenomenon of formation was out of thermodynamic equilibrium. During this thesis, we have investigated several types of crystallization, which are based on the same initial states. The goal is to point out the differences between the initial solution composition and the final solution composition, and to establish a link between the final state and the crystallization rate.Depending on the rate of crystallization (slow or fast), the acquisition time of experimental data lasted from a few days to several weeks. The experimental tests were performed inside a stirred batch reactor (autoclave, 2.44 or 2.36 L) cooled with a double jacket. Real-time measurements of the composition of the gas and the liquid phases have been performed, in order to calculate the composition of the hydrate phase using mass balance calculations. Depending on the crystallization mode, we have identified several variations of the composition of the hydrate phase and final hydrate volume.We have established a successful thermodynamic model, which indicates the composition of the hydrate phase and hydrate volume in thermodynamic equilibrium state using a gas mixture which had never been used before in the literature. So this thermodynamic model has required an extremely slow experimental test. These tests were also long in order to be sure of the thermodynamic equilibrium state.We are currently establishing a kinetics model in order to model the deviations from the reference point of equilibrium of our experimental tests which were carried out at a high crystallization rate.

No description available.

No description available.