General information
Emissions of CO2 and ensuing global climate change is one major societal challenge. With unchanged present emissions of about 40 GtCO2/year, the carbon budgets for the 1.5ºC and 2ºC global warming limits will be exhausted within the near future. Consequently, it is necessary to reduce CO2 emissions significantly and rapidly. Since approx. 80% of current primary energy use is based on fossil fuels, most of the IPCC emission scenarios that meet the global two-degree limit, require that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is deployed for major industrial sectors, such as heat and power and process industries. Considering the limited time available, it may also be necessary to actually remove carbon from the atmosphere, i.e. overshooting the carbon budget at first, followed by removing the excess carbon from the atmosphere. This can be achieved by utilization of biomass together with carbon capture, often referred to as BECCS. There are also possibilities to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, i.e. Direct Air Capture (DAC). In fact, negative emissions on a substantial scale appear to be indispensable to meet the climate targets decided in the Paris agreement. There is currently significant research and development in Sweden and globally to find efficient processes for carbon capture, both at universities and in industry.
In this interdisciplinary course on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) you will learn about different aspects related to CCS, including:
• How the main CO2 capture technologies work
• Materials for efficient capture processes
• Transportation and storage options for CO2
• Utilization of captured CO2 in products and processes
• Hydrogen production and carbon capture
• CCS integrated in future energy systems
• BECCS or DAC as options to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, i.e. achieve negative emissions
• The role of CCS and BECCS/DAC in an overall carbon mitigation portfolio
• Socio-economic and regulatory barriers for CCS
Course content
The course will include lectures on relevant topics by experts from Chalmers and industry. There will be individual exercises coupled to the different lecture themes and associated literature. There will then be one main interdisciplinary group project which will be carried out during the course. The project topics can be theoretical or experimental but will include different interdisciplinary aspects and will be closely coupled to current research and industry needs. The final projects will be presented at a public Poster session at the end of the course. Each project will have a main supervisor from the teaching team, which includes researchers from the Dept. of Space, Earth and Environment, Dept. of Technology Management and Economics and Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
As part of the course, students will also have the to join a tour of the main CCS-affiliated laboratories at Chalmers. Further, there will also be an industrial seminar related to CCS with presentations from companies involved with CCS, e.g. Preem, Gothenburg Energy, Öresundskraft and Equinor, who all participated in the last round of the course.
Prerequisites
The course is open to students from all Master’s programs at Chalmers, but it is expected to be of special interest for students enrolled in MPSES, MPISC, MPMCN, MPTSE and MPAPE programs. The course can be used as an elective in all programs, but also as a compulsory elective in certain cases.
How to apply
Apply to all Tracks courses at universityadmissions.se/antagning.se.
At universityadmissions.se/antagning.se: Search for the course you are interested in by using the course code starting with TRA.
Read more here.
Please add a motivation letter (max 1 page), including your background and why you are interested in taking the course, to the applciation.
A maximum of 25 students can be enrolled in the course, and the final selection will be made by examiner and teaching team.
Details
Teacher: Prof. Tobias Mattisson, A number of other researchers at Chalmers will also participate.
Course dates: Study period 1-2, 2024
Credits: 7.5
Course code: TRA205
Application deadline: April 30 – May 14, 2024