ARCHIMEDE Project

The GasHyDyn Center of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de St-Etienne has initiated a project for the study of gas hydrate particle sizing during crystallization in Multiphasic flow loop (oil, water, methane hydrate and gas).

The goal of this new apparatus is to couple the rheology to the Particle Size Distribution of water dropplets and gas hydrate during cristallization and to understand the influence of dispersants and kinetics additives.

The two main originalities of this new flow loop reactor are :

- firstly, the ARCHIMEDE flow loop is instrumented by different technologies of particle sizers (light turbidimetry, light backscattering, cords length measurements, optical miscroscopy)
- secondly, the system which induces the flowing is a gas lift riser. Indeed, we preserve the suspension from the high shear stress generated by a pump. The limit of that technology is to reach only laminar flowing. In order to reach turbulent flowing, a Moineau pump is installed on a derivation. It is a low turbulence pump.

The program has been sequenced into the following parts :

1999 - 2000 : - determination of a representative water in oil system adapted to the constraints of particle sizing, i.e. which is a transparent system. - particle sizing of water dropplets and methane hydrate particles in semi-batch reactor, evaluation of the mass transfert properties of methane from gas phase into oil phase, and from oil phase into water phase.
2000 - 2002 : designing and building (see pictures) of the ARCHIMEDE flow loop
2002 – 2003 : experiments and modelling (Fidel Dufour et al, 2005)
2003 - 2006 : implementation of an AELLO probe and FBRM probe (cords length measurement) and validation on the "archimède flow loop (Master of research of Hung LE BA)
2007 – 2009 Ph.D Work of Hung Le Ba : - implementation of an ATR probe (to measure the concentration in the oil phase flowing), - implementation of a transparent section and optical measurement of the particle size, - tests of LDI (Low Dosage Inhibitors), extrapolation to pilot scale (experiments on the lyre flow loop located at IFP-Solaize, France).