Serious
issues regarding the scarcity of freshwater encouraged
researchers to work on various methods for seawater desalination.
Hydrate-based desalination (HBD) is a novel method that has received
investigators’ attention due to its outstanding properties.
According to the literature, refrigerant hydrates have great potential
to be employed in the HBD process because of their highly moderate
phase equilibrium. The main purpose of the current study is to investigate
the influence of different concentrations of NaCl (0, 1, 3.5, 5, and
8 wt %) on the major kinetic parameters of R410a refrigerant hydrate
formation in the presence and absence of cyclopentane with the concentration
of 0.5 mol % as a coformer. The experiments were performed in a stirred
laboratory reactor at an initial temperature of 278.15 K and initial
pressures of 0.9 and 1 MPa. The measurements of induction time and
mole of gas consumption show that NaCl increases the induction time
and decreases the amount of gas consumption. However, the addition
of 0.5 mol % cyclopentane decreases the induction time slightly and
increases the final amount of gas consumed. Besides, despite the fact
that cyclopentane decreases the initial rate of gas uptake, it could
promote the amount of gas consumption during hydrate formation. The
results of the water-to-hydrate conversion ratio illustrated that
NaCl with concentrations up to 5 wt % exhibits an insignificant decrease
of water-to-hydrate conversion, while 8 wt % NaCl decreases this parameter
down to 51.48%. Moreover, the positive effect of cyclopentane on the
growth stage was revealed by determination of the apparent rate constant
of hydrate growth. This study provides useful data for designing and
understanding the HBD process via R410a hydrate formation.
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