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Updated: Apr 12, 2026

Methane Hydrate Crystallization on Sessile Water Droplets
Published on: May 26, 2021
Entropic Description of Gas Hydrate Ice-Liquid Equilibrium via Enhanced Sampling of Coexisting Phases
Edyta Małolepsza1, Jaegil Kim2, Tom Keyes1
1Department of Chemistry, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215-2521, USA.
Abstract:
Metastable β ice holds small guest molecules in stable gas hydrates, so its solid-liquid equilibrium is of interest. However, aqueous crystal-liquid transitions are very difficult to simulate. A new molecular dynamics algorithm generates trajectories in a generalized NPT ensemble and equilibrates states of coexisting phases with a selectable enthalpy. With replicas spanning the range between β ice and liquid water, we find the statistical temperature from the enthalpy histograms and characterize the transition by the entropy, introducing a general computational procedure for first-order transitions.
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