Morphological Study of Cyclopentane Hydrates in Brine Solutions for Desalination Application

National audienceCyclopentane hydrates (CPH) is considered as a candidate for desalination due to its low operating required energy. In order to design such desalination plant, it is crucial to understand both the thermodynamics of crystallization of CPH, as well as the kinetics in the presence of diverse salts. While thermodynamics has been studied prior to this study (Ho-Van et al 2018), the present work focuses on kinetics and morphology of CPH in pure as well as saline water. Different brine solutions of Na2SO4, NaCl, NaCl-MgCl2, or NaCl-KCl-MgCl2 are considered at different concentrations (3.5% and 5% mass fraction) and at different subcoolings (2.5°C, 3.5°C, and 4.3°C). A small horizontal vessel (flat cylinder shaped: inner volume ≈ 1.23 ml, height 4 mm, diameter 19.8 mm) was used under a microscopy without agitation