Promoting Effect of Organic–Inorganic Self-Assembled Composites on Methane Hydrate

Considering the high thermal conductivity of metal nanofluids and carbon-based nanomaterials as well as the promoting effect of surfactant on hydrate formation, in this study, first, graphyne was coated on the surface of CuNW by in situ growth, and then the surface of intermediate CuNW@GDY was modified with sulfonate ion by emulsion polymerization to obtain the final product CuNW@GDY-PSS, which was used in the methane hydrate experiments. The morphology of synthesized CuNW@GDY-PSS was confirmed by SEM and TEM, and it has a transparent wrinkled structure. In methane hydrate formation experiments, compared with CuNW@GDY, CuNW@GDY-PSS can shorten the induction time by 74.8%, from 45.37 ± 4.83 to 11.42 ± 1.41 min. Furthermore, the experimental results indicate that CuNW@GDY-PSS obtained when the mass ratio of CuNW@GDY to sulfonic acid ions is 0.4 has the best promoting effect on the hydrate experiments. In addition, CuNW@GDY-PSS has good hydrophilicity and good cycling in the multicycle methane hydrate formation and dissociation experiments, which would have potential applications for natural gas storage and transportation.