Protecting environment and assuring efficient energy transfer using ionic liquids

Gas hydrates are ice-like crystalline compounds that are formed when small gas molecules get trapped within the water molecules under high pressure and low-temperature conditions in oil and gas transmission lines. The formation of these hydrates is a major threat to oil and gas industry as they have a tendency to agglomerate and completely block the oil and gas transmission lines, which may lead to an explosion or cause unwanted operations shut down. Therefore, annually industry spends around 1 billion US dollars on hydrate prevention procedures which includes extensive use of chemical inhibitors. These chemical inhibitors are generally classified as thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors (THI) and kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHI). The thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors function by shifting hydrate dissociation temperature to lower values and kinetic hydrate inhibitors function by delaying the hydrate formation time. The commercial THI like Methanol and Mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) perform well, but these inhibitor...