Advection of Methane in the Hydrate Zone: Model, Analysis and Examples

A two-phase two-component model is formulated for the advective-diffusive transport of methane in liquid phase through sediment with the accompanying formation and dissolution of methane hydrate. This free-boundary problem has a unique generalized solution in $L^1$; the proof combines analysis of the stationary semilinear elliptic Dirichlet problem with the nonlinear semigroup theory in Banach space for an m-accretive multi-valued operator. Additional estimates of maximum principle type are obtained, and these permit appropriate maximal extensions of the phase-change relations. An example with pure advection indicates the limitations of these estimates and of the model developed here. We also consider and analyze the coupled pressure equation that determines the advective flux in the transport model.