What are clathrate hydrates?
Clathrate hydrates (or alternatively gas clathrates, gas hydrates, clathrates, hydrates etc) are a class of solids in which gas molecules occupy “cages” made up of hydrogen-bonded water molecules. These “cages” are unstable when empty, collapsing into conventional ice crystal structure, but they are stabilized by the inclusion of appropriately sized molecules within them. Most low molecular weight gases (including O2, N2, CO2, CH4, H2S, Ar, Kr, and Xe), as well as some higher hydrocarbons and freons will form hydrate under certain pressure-temperature conditions. Clathrate hydrates are not chemical compounds. The formation and decomposition of clathrate hydrates are first order phase transitions, not chemical reactions. Clathrates are believed to occur in large quantities on some outer planets, moons and trans-Neptunian objects, binding gas at fairly high temperatures. Clathrates have also been discovered in large quantity on Earth, i.e. in giant natural methane clathrate deposits on t
