Enhanced methane hydrate formation with SDS-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles as promoters

Nano metal fluids have been applied to promote the formation of natural gas hydrates . In this work, the sol of SDS@Fe 3 O 4 (named as SDS@Fe 3 O 4 ) were prepared and used as promoters in methane hydrate formation. Compared with SDS , SDS@Fe 3 O 4 produced much better promotion and the main superiority was that SDS@Fe 3 O 4 could significantly shorten the induction periods of hydrate formation. When SDS was used, the induction periods lasted about 40–60   min, while when SDS@Fe 3 O 4 was used at the same concentrations, hydrates nucleated within 10   min, especially, even no obvious induction periods were observed when SDS@Fe 3 O 4 was used in some experiments. Particle size showed significant influences on the promotion of SDS@Fe 3 O 4 to methane hydrate formation and smaller particles resulted in rapider hydrate formation. In addition, SDS@Fe 3 O 4 showed excellent repeatability during the hydrate formation-dissociation cycles.