Understanding the transformation process of CH4 hydrate to CO2 hydrate is crucial to develop the CH4-CO2 replacement technique for CH4 production and CO2 sequestration. Ab initio calculations show that the transformation will slightly distort the host lattice and decrease the binding strength of guest molecules, but it is a thermodynamically spontaneous process dominated by the entropic contribution. Moreover, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations suggest that the dynamics of the host lattice is independent on the guest molecules, while CO2 in hydrate exhibits slower translational and rotational motion than CH4 in hydrate. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.