Gas Hydrate-Based CO2 Capture: A Journey from Batch to Continuous

Abstract

Future carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) will be impacted by the new scenario in which the energy supply rapidly shifts from oil-based to natural gas-based means, but this shift also presents an opportunity to utilize natural gas hydrates (NGHs). This review discusses the present state of CCS research and development, the advantages of the various approaches, and the barriers to commercialization that exist today. It also provides an evaluation of certain practical small- and large-scale CCS applications. The high initial investment, as well as ongoing maintenance costs, plague today’s commercially accessible CO2 capture technologies, including absorption, adsorption, membranes, and cryogenic separation. Gas hydrate-based capture has the potential to become the dominant method for CO2 separation because of the high recovery rates and purity it provides. Hydrate-based technologies, including CO2 capture, CO2 separation, and transportation, can also be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have excellent application potential. Despite this, the potential of technology based on gas hydrates to help reduce the effects of climate change in the future has received little attention. This study discusses cosmopolitan energy provision and environmental challenges and conversions, and the role of gas hydrates in the carbon cycle. This paper summarizes the state-of-the-art developments in hydrate-based reactors, thereby providing a perspective on the roles of NGHs in the future energy supply and climate change mitigation. In all these areas, we focus on identifying future CCS challenges and the technological development risk in gas hydrate-based systems, which should be highlighted in the next several decades.