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Clathrate Hydrates of Natural Gases
E. Dendy Sloan, Jr.
Marcel Dekker, New York, NY, 754 pp., $195, indexed
Gas hydrates, or more properly, clathrate hydrates, are crystalline solids composed of water surrounding natural gas components like methane, ethane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfides. For chemical engineers in the oil and gas industry, hydrates are a nuisance that plug lines and equipment and can, unless relieved, cause failures. Recently, the discovery that they naturally occur in suboceanic and permafrost environments has received considerable attention. Current resource estimates, while highly uncertain, indicate that there is more carbon in the form of methane hydrates than all other fossil fuels combined. In addition, the dissociation and formation of gas hydrates may play a role (not yet well understood) in global climate change.
The repeated plugging of a 24inch natural gas pipeline from the Texas Panhandle to Chicago in 1931-32 led to the first serious engineering study of the formation of gas hydrates. Prior to the studies of E. G. Hammerschmidt (Ind. & Eng. Chem., 26,...