Gas hydrate fast nucleation from melting ice and quiescent growth along vertical heat transfer tube

During the observation of HCFC141b gas hydrate growth processes outside a vertical heat transfer tube, two exciting phenomena were found: fast nucleation of gas hydrate from melting ice, and the spontaneous permeation of water into the guest phases along the surface of heat transfer tube to form gas hydrate continuously. These two phenomena were explained with Zhou & Sloan's hypothesis and the theory of surface free energy respectively, and a novel method of gas hydrate formation was presented--gas hydrate fast nucleation from melting ice and quiescent growth along heat transfer tube. There is no mechanic stirring in this method, the formed gas hydrates are compact, the ratio of unreacted interstitial water is little, which overcome the drawback of high energy cost and high ratio of unreacted interstitial water among the formed gas hydrates in the system with mechanic stirring. This finding will benefit the gas hydrate application technologies such as natural gas storage technology or cool storage technology with gas hydrate.