In this contribution, a method based on a solid solution theory of clathrate hydrate for multiple cage occupancy, host lattice relaxation, and guest-guest interactions is presented to estimate hydrate formation conditions of binary and ternary gas mixtures. We performed molecular modeling of the structure, guest distribution, and hydrate formation conditions for the CO₂ + CH₄ and CO₂ + CH₄ + N₂ gas hydrates. In all considered systems with and without N₂, at high and medium content of CO₂ in the gas phase, we found that CO₂ was more favorable in occupying clathrate hydrate cavities than CH₄ or N₂. The addition of N₂ to the gas phase increased the ratio concentration of CO₂ in comparison with the concentration of CH₄ in clathrate hydrates and made gas replacement more effective. The mole fraction of CO₂ in the CO₂ + CH₄ + N₂ gas hydrate rapidly increased with the growth of its content in the gas phase, and the formation pressure of the CO₂ + CH₄ + N₂ gas hydrate rose in comparison to the formation pressure of the CO₂ + CH₄ gas hydrate. The obtained results agreed with the known experimental data for simple CH₄ and CO₂ gas hydrates and the mixed CO₂ + CH₄ gas hydrate.

Ozone storage capacity in O₃+ O₂+ N₂+ CO₂clathrate hydrate was estimated theoretically.

An original approach accounting for multiple cavity occupancy, host lattice relaxation and the description of the quantum nature of guest behaviour has been used for the estimation of the thermodynamic properties of pure hydrogen and binary C₂H₆ + H₂ hydrates with the possibility of multiple filling of cavities by guest molecules. It has been found that the pure hydrogen cubic structure II (CS-II) hydrate is more thermodynamically stable than the cubic structure I (CS-I) hydrate in a wide range of p–T regions. However, at low pressure, the stabilisation of the CS-I hydrate can be realised for H₂–C₂H₆–H₂O systems even with small concentrations of ethane in the gas phase. However, in this case, the amount of stored hydrogen strongly depends on the ethane concentrations in the gas phase. At low concentration of ethane, the amount of hydrogen stored, 2.5 wt%, in CS-I hydrate can be achieved at T = 250 K. We believe that the present approach can be useful for understanding the thermodynamic properties of the binary hydrate and it can support the experimental exploration of novel hydrogen storage materials based on clathrate hydrates.

A method for studying the time dependence of the short-range molecular order of water has been proposed. In the present study, water is considered as a dynamic network between molecules at distances not exceeding 3.2 Å. The instantaneous configurations obtained with the molecular dynamics method have been sequentially analyzed. The mutual orientation of each molecule with its neighboring molecules has been studied and the interaction energy of each pair of neighbor molecules has been calculated. The majority of mutual orientation angles between molecules lie in the interval [0°; 20°]. More than 85% of the molecular pairs in each instantaneous configuration form H-bonds and the H-bond network includes all water molecules in the temperature range 233–293 K. The number of H-bonds fluctuates near the mean value and increases with decreasing temperature, and the energy of the vast majority of such bonds is much higher than the thermal energy. The interaction energy of 80% of the H-bonding molecular pairs lies in the interval [−7; −4] kcal/mol. The interaction energy of pairs that do not satisfy the H-bond angle criterion lies in the interval [−5; 4] kcal/mol; the number of such bonds does not exceed 15% and decreases with decreasing temperature. For the first time it has been found that in each instantaneous configuration the H-bond network contains built-in nanometric structural heterogeneities formed by shorter H-bonds. The fraction of molecules involved in the structural heterogeneities increases from 40% to 60% with a temperature decrease from 293 K to 233 K. Each heterogeneity has a finite lifetime and changeable structure, but they are constantly present during the entire simulation time.

Using molecular dynamics, the evolution of a metastable solution for “methane + water” was studied for concentrations of 3.36, 6.5, 9.45, 12.2, and 14.8 mol% methane at 270 K and 1 bar during 100 ns. We have found the intriguing behavior of the system containing over 10,000 water molecules: the formation of hydrate-like structures is observed at 6.5 and 9.45 mol% concentrations throughout the entire solution volume. This formation of “blobs” and the following amorphous hydrate were studied. The creation of a metastable methane solution through supersaturation is the key to triggering the collective process of hydrate formation under low pressure. Even the first stage (0–1 ns), before the first fluctuating cavities appear, is a collective process of H-bond network reorganization. The formation of fluctuation cavities appears before steady hydrate growth begins and is associated with a preceding uniform increase in the water molecule’s tetrahedrality. Later, the constantly presented hydrate cavities become the foundation for a few independent hydrate nucleation centers, this evolution is consistent with the labile cluster and local structure hypotheses. This new mechanism of hydrogen-bond network reorganization depends on the entropy of the cavity arrangement of the guest molecules in the hydrate lattice and leads to hydrate growth.