Application of Continuous Thermodynamics to Natural-Gas Mixtures

This work reviews recent progress in the application of continuous thermodynamics towards calculation of phase equilibria in natural-gas mixtures. In such mixtures, there may be too many components to identify each component individually. Continuous thermodynamics provides a theoretical framework for representing the composition of a portion of the natural-gas mixture by a continuous distribution function. Advances in continuous thermodynamics are discussed in three areas :(1) Characterization and representation of composition in a many-component mixture(2) Development and application of molecular-thermodynamic models for continuous mixtures, and(3) Implementation of efficient numerical techniques for solving material-balance and phase-equilibrium equations. While continuous thermodynamics provides a useful tool for calculation of phase equilibria in natural-gas mixtures, successful implementation requires better chemical-analytical characterization methods. Further, improved semi-theoretical techniques must be developed to relate experimental characterization information to physically significant parameters in molecular-thermodynamic models