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Updated: Feb 24, 2026

Methane Hydrate Crystallization on Sessile Water Droplets
Published on: May 26, 2021
A Chiral Gas-Hydrate Structure Common to the Carbon Dioxide-Water and Hydrogen-Water Systems
Daniel M Amos1, Mary-Ellen Donnelly1, Pattanasak Teeratchanan1
1SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy and Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions, The University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
We present full in situ structural solutions of carbon dioxide hydrate-II and hydrogen hydrate C0 at elevated pressures using neutron and X-ray diffraction. We find both hydrates adopt a common water network structure. The structure exhibits several features not previously found in hydrates; most notably it is chiral and has large open spiral channels along which the guest molecules are free to move. It has a network that is unrelated to any experimentally known ice, silica, or zeolite network but is instead related to two Zintl compounds. Both hydrates are found to be stable in electronic structure calculations, with hydration ratios in very good agreement with experiment.
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