Natural gas hydrate formation in an ejector loop reactor: Preliminary study

A natural gas hydrate formation system based on the ejector-type loop reactor (ELR) has been built. Three types of flow patterns in the reactor are observed with variation of the gas entrainment rate, i.e., single-bubble regime, intermediate regime, and jet regime. The flow pattern under the free suction state of the ejector is in the jet regime. The microbubble generated from ELR with a static mixer can shorten the induction time for hydrate formation significantly. However, it cannot improve the hydrate formation rate as the gas entrainment rate decreased with the static mixer on. The hydrate formation rate of the ELR system is dependent on the subcooling, gas entrainment rate, and pressure and is fairly comparable with the formation rate of both water spraying and stirring reactor in the literature.