Gas hydrates: A comprehensive multi-scale review of mechanisms, diversified applications, risk mitigation, and pathways toward sustainable energy-environmental synergy

Gas hydrates technology have emerged as a vital strategy for tackling global energy and environmental challenges. This paper synthesizes the current state of knowledge regarding the exploitation, utilization, and prevention of gas hydrates, highlighting recent advancements while identifying key challenges and opportunities. The work explores the dual role of gas hydrates as a promising energy source and an environmental challenge, highlighting their applications in energy storage, carbon capture, gas separation, and water treatment. Additionally, it examines the associated risks, including pipeline blockages and potential climate impacts resulting from uncontrolled methane emissions. This work presents a multi-scale approach that integrates microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic perspectives to offer a comprehensive understanding of gas hydrate phenomena. At microscopic level, molecular dynamics simulations and material characterization techniques offer insights into structural properties and molecular interactions. Mesoscopic studies, employing computational fluid dynamics and microfluidic experiments, provide insights into gas hydrate behavior in confined spaces. Macroscopic investigations, including laboratory experiments and multi-physical field coupling simulations, assess the effectiveness and environmental impacts of various exploitation techniques. The review concludes by examining the challenges and opportunities in the field, providing a roadmap for researchers and policymakers aiming to harness the potential of gas hydrates while mitigating associated risks. • Multi-scale approaches reveal mechanisms of gas hydrate formation and dissociation. • Review MD, DFT, and microscopic characterization for hydrate mechanism insights. • Compare CFD and microfluidic studies of pore-scale hydrate behavior and transport. • Identify risks like methane leaks, pipeline blockages, and related climate effects. • Outline roadmap for safe, scalable, and sustainable gas hydrate exploitation.