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An accurate knowledge of cage occupancy of methane is central for understanding the physical-chemical properties of gas hydrates, the actual inventory of natural gas in hydrate deposits and the description of gas exchange processes. Here we report the absolute cage occupancies, the cage occupancy ratios and hydration numbers of the synthetic CH4-H2O and CH4-D2O hydrates formed from the ice-gas system under different pressures and temperatures. The results were obtained from Rietveld refinement using high-resolution synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction patterns and from Raman spectroscopic measurements. The small-cage occupancies of methane in the deuterated hydrates are found to be slightly higher than in the hydrogenated form, likely due to their different lattice constants. The CH4 occupancy in the small cages agrees fairly well with the predictions of CSMGem at the formation pressure of 3.5 MPa, but with the increasing formation pressure the disagreement grows up to 11 percent. While some deficiency of the prediction model cannot be excluded, the observed discrepancy may well be due to experimental difficulties of reaching true equilibrium at higher pressures. The experimentally determined large-to-small cage occupancy ratios of the synthetic and natural CH4 hydrates formed from the water-gas system are consistently higher than the results of CSMGem calculations. Possible reasons for these discrepancies will be discussed., Comment: Unpublished contribution to the 8th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH-8), Beijing, China, 28 July - 1 August 2015 (was only available to the conference participants)

In a combination of neutron and synchrotron diffraction the lattice constants and expansivities of hydrogenated and deuterated CH4-, CO2-, Xe- (structure type I) and N2-hydrate (structure type II) from 10 K up to the stability limit under pressure were established. Some important results emerge from our analysis: (1) Despite the larger guest-size of CO2 as compared to methane, CO2- hydrate has the smaller lattice constants at low temperatures which we ascribe to the larger attractive guest-host interaction of the CO2-water system. (2) The expansivity of CO2-hydrate is larger than for CH4-hydrate which leads to larger lattice constants for the former at temperatures above ~ 150 K; this is likely due to the higher motional degrees of freedom of the CO2 guest molecules. (3) The cage filling does not affect significantly the lattice constants in CH4- and CO2-hydrate in contrast to Xe-hydrate for which the effect is quantitatively established. (4) Similar to ice Ih, the deuterated compounds have slightly larger lattice constants for all investigated systems which can be ascribed to the somewhat weaker H-bonding; the isotopic difference is smallest for the Xesystem,in which the large Xe atoms lead to an increase of averaged H-bond distances. (5) Compared to ice Ih the high temperature expansivities are about 50% larger; in contrast to ice Ih, there is no negative thermal expansion at low temperature., Comment: Unpublished contribution to the 8th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH-8), Beijing, China, 28 July - 1 August 2015 (was only available to the conference participants)

Gas hydrates grown at gas-ice interfaces are examined by electron microscopy and found to have a submicron porous texture. Permeability of the intervening hydrate layers provides the connection between the two counterparts (gas and water molecules) of the clathration reaction and makes further hydrate formation possible. The study is focused on phenomenological description of principal stages and rate-limiting processes that control the kinetics of the porous gas hydrate crystal growth from ice powders. Although the detailed physical mechanisms involved in the porous hydrate formation still are not fully understood, the initial stage of hydrate film spreading over the ice surface should be distinguished from the subsequent stage which is presumably limited by the clathration reaction at the ice-hydrate interface and develops after the ice grain coating is finished. The model reveals a time dependence of the reaction degree essentially different from that when the rate-limiting step of the hydrate formation at the second stage is the gas and water transport (diffusion) through the hydrate shells surrounding the shrinking ice cores. The theory is aimed at the interpretation of experimental data on the hydrate growth kinetics., Comment: Unpublished contribution to the Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH-4), Yokohama, May 19-23, 2002, pp.766-770, Editor Y.H.Mori (was only available to the conference participants)

Synchrotron powder diffraction data were measured on various gas hydrates prepared at different fugacities and recovered to low temperatures. The data extend to sin {\theta}/{\lambda} values of at least 1.01 {\AA}-1, in some cases up to 1.48 {\AA}-1, i.e. at least 3 times further in reciprocal space than the best single crystal data obtained so far. Here the results of CO2-hydrate are presented in detail. Structural information is obtained from Rietveld refinements to unprecedented precision. All H-bonded O-O distances are found to be close to 2.75-2.76 {\AA}, i.e. very close to the values in ice Ih; differences between a hydrogenated and deuterated host lattice are insignificant. Cage occupancies were obtained for the first time in free refinements together with positional parameters of the guest molecule and their atomic displacement parameters. There is good agreement between the experimental cage occupancies and prediction results from CSMGem., Comment: Unpublished contribution to the 7th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH-7), Edinburgh, UK, 17-21 July 2011 (was only available to the conference participants)

Dissociation of gas hydrates below 240 K leads to the formation of a metastable form of water ice, so called cubic ice (Ic). Through its defective nature and small particle size the surface film composed of such material is incapable of creating any significant diffusion barrier. Above 160 K, cubic ice gradually transforms to the stable hexagonal (Ih) form on laboratory time scales. The annealing, coupled with a parallel decomposition of gas hydrates, accelerates as temperature rises but already above 190 K the first process prevails, transforming cubic stacking sequences in-to ordinary Ih ice within a few minutes. Remaining stacking faults are removed through very slow isothermal annealing or after heating up above 240 K. The role of the proportion of cubic stacking on the decomposition rate is discussed. A better understanding of the dissociation kinetics at low temperatures is particularly im-portant for the critical evaluation of existing hypotheses that consider clathrates as a potential medium that actively participate in geological processes or is able to store gases (e.g. CH4, CO2 or Xe) in environments like comets, icy moons (i. e. Titan, Europa, Enceladus) or on Mars. Here, we present kinetics studies on the dissociation of CO2 clathrates at isothermal and isobaric conditions between 170 and 190K and mean Martian surface pressure. We place special attention to the formed ice and demonstrate its influence on the dissociation rates with a combination of neutron diffraction studies (performed on D20 at ILL/Grenoble) and cryo-SEM. More detailed crystallo-graphic information has been acquired via a flexible stacking-fault model capable of revealing the time evolution of the defect structure of ice Ic in terms of stacking probabilities and crystal size., Comment: Unpublished contribution to the 7th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH-7), Edinburgh, UK, 17-21 July 2011 (was only available to the conference participants)