Wombat

(high-intensity powder diffractometer)

Wombat has been used by CSIRO to study the high-pressure formation of methane clathrate hydrate, in which methane is encapsulated in a cage of water molecules. Clathrates can form in natural-gas pipelines at high pressure on the ocean floor and can initiate the formation of ice plugs, completely blocking the pipeline, and an understanding of the early stages of their formation is critical to prevention of these blockages. The figure below shows the time evolution of high-pressure clathrate formation in D₂O ice, with a marked increase as the ice is melted, and demonstrates Wombats ability to resolve changes over 1 minute time intervals.

Wombat-Graph