Ĭlathrates have been found to occur naturally in large quantities. Ĭlathrate hydrates were first documented in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy who found that water was a primary component of what was earlier thought to be solidified chlorine. Their detailed formation and decomposition mechanisms on a molecular level are still not well understood. The formation and decomposition of clathrate hydrates are first order phase transitions, not chemical reactions. Clathrate hydrates are not officially chemical compounds, as the enclathrated guest molecules are never bonded to the lattice. Most low molecular weight gases, including O 2, H 2, N 2, CO 2, CH 4, H 2S, Ar, Kr, and Xe, as well as some higher hydrocarbons and freons, will form hydrates at suitable temperatures and pressures. Without the support of the trapped molecules, the lattice structure of hydrate clathrates would collapse into conventional ice crystal structure or liquid water.
In other words, clathrate hydrates are clathrate compounds in which the host molecule is water and the guest molecule is typically a gas or liquid. Methane clathrate block embedded in the sediment of hydrate ridge, off Oregon, USAĬlathrate hydrates, or gas hydrates, clathrates, hydrates, etc., are crystalline water-based solids physically resembling ice, in which small non-polar molecules (typically gases) or polar molecules with large hydrophobic moieties are trapped inside "cages" of hydrogen bonded, frozen water molecules.