Temperature gradient and cooling rate have an obvious effect on formation of methane hydrate. The process for formation of methane hydrate in coarse sand is monitored to understand the relationship between temperature gradient and cooling rate and nucleation, growth and distribution of methane hydrate by using the electrical resistivity method. The results show that the change of resistivity can better reflect the nucleation and growth and distribution of methane hydrate. Temperature gradient promotes the nucleation, formation, and formation rate of methane hydrate. At a temperature gradient of 0.11 ℃/cm, the rate of methane hydrate formation and saturation reaches a maximum. Cooling rate has little effect on the methane hydrate formation process. Judging from the outcome of final spatial distribution of methane hydrate, the cooling rate has an obvious but irregular effect in coarse sand. The effect of temperature gradient on distribution of methane hydrate in coarse sand is less than that of cooling rate. At a temperature gradient of 0.07 ℃/cm, methane hydrate is distributed uniformly in the sample. If the temperature gradient is higher or lower than this value, the hydrate is enriched in the upper layer of sample.
Porous medium has an obvious effect on the formation of carbon dioxide hydrate. In order to study the characteristics of CO2 hydrate formation in porous medium below the freezing point, the experiment of CO2 hydrate formation was conducted in a high-pressure 1.8-L cell in the presence of porous media with a particle size of 380 μm, 500 μm and 700 μm, respectively. The test results showed that the porous medium had an important influence on the process of CO2 hydrate formation below the freezing point. Compared with porous media with a particle size of 500 μm and 700 μm, respectively, the average hydrate formation rate and gas storage capacity of carbon dioxide hydrate in the porous medium with a particle size of 380 μm attained 0.016 14 mol/h and 65.094 L/L, respectively. The results also indicated that, within a certain range of particle sizes, the smaller the particle size of porous medium was, the larger the average hydrate formation rate and the gas storage capacity of CO2 hydrate during the process of hydrate formation would be.
