# Agglomerations of Methane Hydrate Particles in Aqueous Solutions: Insight from Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulations

## TL;DR

This paper uses simulations to study how methane hydrate particles clump together in water, revealing factors like particle size and shape that influence their behavior.

## Contribution

The study introduces a new computational framework for analyzing methane hydrate particle agglomeration using dissipative particle dynamics.

## Key findings

- Methane hydrate particle agglomeration is influenced by particle size, size ratios, and shapes.
- Hydrate particle distances oscillate before agglomeration, with amplitude depending on particle size.
- The motion of hydrate particles aligns with previous microscopic studies during agglomeration.

## Abstract

Despite the common occurrence of hydrate particle agglomerations
in engineering applications and naturally occurring environments,
there is still a gap in exploring the agglomeration mechanism of gas
hydrate particles in aqueous solutions due to the experimental challenges
and limitations. Herein, particle agglomerations of methane hydrates
are investigated by using dissipative particle dynamics. Our results
show that the agglomeration behaviors of methane hydrate particles
are related to particle sizes, the particle size ratios, and the shapes
of hydrate particles. Before hydrate particle agglomerations, the
distance between any two hydrate particles in these hydrate particle
systems exhibits an oscillation manner, and their fluctuation amplitude
strongly depends on the particle sizes. Furthermore, the hydrate particle
motions in those agglomeration processes are consistent with previous
studies at the microscopic scale. This work not only extends the research
scale of hydrate particle agglomerations but also provides a new computational
method framework for gas hydrate communities in the world.