Modelling of Effects of Porosity on Methane Hydrates Dissociation via Thermal Stimulation Method

Methane hydrate has a high potential to be an alternative energy resource of the future as it exists in enormous quantities in permafrost regions worldwide. There were various models have been developed to simulate the production of methane gas from the methane hydrates by using different kind of extraction methods. In this study, the Clarke-Kim-Bishnoi model has been selected as it is much more simplified compared to other models and its flexibility to study the formation as well as decomposition of the methane hydrate. The model is used to simulate the effect of changing porosity, different constant pressure at various temperature to the methane hydrate dissociation rate. The temperature is varied as to represent the thermal stimulation method process. The graph of temperature vs. dissociation rate is used to analyze the results. The result shows that as the temperature increases, the dissociation rate will also increases until the methane hydrate completely dissociated. Besides that, higher porosity will results in slightly faster dissociation rate. It has also been found that the dissociation rate for methane hydrate is higher than ethane hydrate. This study has a high potential to be extended for detailed research as it would provide more information on the modelling of gas production from hydrates in porous media.