Kinetic investigation of CO₂ and N₂ clathrate hydrate formation using cyclopentane: Application in desalination.

Hydrate‐based desalination could be a promising technique for producing fresh water from saline water, as it is an eco‐friendly process and suitable for large‐scale implementation. To make the hydrate‐based desalination technology easily scalable, we looked at using air (or N2) or CO2 as a hydrate former, along with cyclopentane (CP). Hydrate former CP helps to reduce the operating conditions, as CP forms hydrate at ambient pressure. However, hydrate formation kinetics due to water‐insoluble CP is slow. In this work, the kinetics of hydrate formation in saline water were investigated and compared to identify the utility of CO2 and N2 as hydrate formers for desalination work. The addition of CP as a hydrate former should transform the structure of CO2 hydrate from structure I (sI) to structure II (sII), as CP occupies the large cages (51264) in the gas hydrate. A set of three similar reactors were used for this study to collect data quickly. Furthermore, the triple reactor setup is a unique reactor design mounted on a shaker, and a set of SS‐316 balls present inside the horizontal reactor imparts the mixing. Experiments with the CO2‐CP mixture and N2‐CP mixture have been studied in the presence or absence of 3 wt.% NaCl at 274 K and 3 MPa pressure. The gas uptake kinetics, water recovery, and separation efficiency have been investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]