Course syllabus

Course syllabus

Last updated: 2026.08.16

 

The societal challenge

Emissions of CO₂ and ensuing global climate change is one major societal challenge. With unchanged present emissions of about 40 Gt_CO2/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, that is, actively remove excess carbon from the atmosphere to prevent or mitigate potential overshooting of the carbon budget. This can be achieved by utilization of biomass together with carbon capture, often referred to as BECCS. 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.

 

Goals and aims

The course is part of the Tracks platform at Chalmers, with the general aim of providing students with the possibility to learn about and conduct projects related to current societal and engineering challenges where a cross-disciplinary approach is needed. The course “Carbon capture and storage – pathways to negative emissions” is part of the theme “Emerging technologies” and here you will learn about a wide range of aspects related to carbon capture and storage and also work together with students from other programs in a research project, with the aim to investigate and solve a specific challenge related to CCS and/or negative emissions.  Hence an important goal of the course is to develop skills with respect to working in teams to solve open-ended and interdisciplinary research projects.

 

Learning objectives

The learning objectives of the course are divided into general and specific objectives as given below.

General objectives (Tracks)

After completion of the course, you should:

• be able to critically and creatively identify and/or formulate advanced engineering problems.
• be able to master problems with open solutions spaces which includes being able to handle uncertainties and limited information.
• be able to lead and participate in the development of new products, processes and systems using a holistic approach by following a design process and/or a systematic development process.
• be able to work in multidisciplinary teams and collaborate in teams with different compositions.
• show insights about cultural differences and to be able to work sensitively with them.
• show insights about and deal with the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental and societal context.
• be able to identify ethical aspects and discuss and judge their consequences in relation to the specific problem.
• be able to orally and in writing explain and discuss information, problems, methods, design/development processes and solutions.

 

Specific objectives

After the completion of the course, you should:

• understand the factors affecting the global carbon budgets for limiting warming to 1.5 ºC and 2.0 ºC and have knowledge of approximate allowable carbon emissions in relation to current anthropogenic emissions.
• understand the main technical and economic challenge with carbon capture processes.
• understand the technical function of the most common carbon capture processes and be able to describe their advantages and limitations.
• understand the importance of heat integration for reducing capture cost in industrial processes.
• understand how hydrogen can be generated from different energy sources and utilized as an energy carrier with no emissions of CO₂.
• understand the main features of a CO₂ transportation system.
• understand the basic geology needed for geological storage and the main mechanisms and identify possible risks and ways to minimize these risks.
• understand the main techniques proposed for achieving negative emissions and understand how Bioenergy with Carbon capture (BECCS) and Direct Air Capture (DAC) functions and their possibilities and challenges.

• to understand main possible strategies for utilization of CO₂ in products and chemicals and the limitations of such usage.
• to understand how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be used to evaluate CCS/BECCS systems.
• understand the policy-related challenges for CCS/BECCS and the level of governance these are best addressed.
• to understand how CCS/BECCS systems could be integrated into a future energy system portfolio.

• be able to critically evaluate and conduct research with respect to a specific challenge related to CCS and discuss the results and implications in relation to other areas, for example, ecological, economic, ethical and societal.

Content of the course

The course is composed of the following main elements,

1. Lectures (25 h), see schedule in Appendix
2. Content questions (optional)
3. Project 1- Exploring Energy and Costs of Post-Combustion Carbon Capture
4. Quiz
5. Open-ended group project (Project 2) within CCS and Negative Emissions
6. Lab tour to CCS facilities at Chalmers

Lectures

There are 14 lectures planned within the seven modules,

Module I (M1): Background and “crash course” of basic concepts

Module II (M2): Carbon capture technologies and capture in industry

Module III (M3): Hydrogen production with CCS and carbon dioxide utilization

Module IV (M4): Negative emissions with CCS

Module V (M5): Transportation and geological storage

Module VI (M6): Life cycle assessment and Policy for geological net zero

Module VII (M7): CCS integration of Energy systems and Policy and governance

The lectures are concentrated in the first part of the course to provide students with the necessary theoretical background before commencing the open-ended project (project 2) work. Required and recommended reading for each lecture will be uploaded to the course website (Canvas) before the lecture.

The lectures, together with Project 1 and the quiz, correspond to approximately 3-3.5 credits of the course.

Students are expected to attend all lectures, as this enhances learning, provides opportunities for discussion and questions, and shows appreciation for the external guest lecturers contributing to the course.

Content questions (optional)

To support learning, most lectures are accompanied by a short content question or exercise. These assignments are optional, but are strongly recommended as a way for students to check their understanding of the lecture material and assigned reading and also prepare you for the quiz.

The content questions will be posted on Canvas before each lecture. Students who submit answers via Canvas will receive feedback from the teaching team. Assignments should be submitted before the beginning of the following module (or within one week of the lecture) and should not exceed 2,000 characters, including spaces (approximately 300 words), unless otherwise stated.

For those students who submit answers to the content questions on time and answer the questions correctly will receive a bonus point of 0.5 points which can be added to your total points on the quiz.

Project 1 – Exploring Energy and Costs of Post-Combustion Carbon Capture

During the lecture series, students will complete a two-week guided group project designed to reinforce the concepts introduced during the lectures and provide hands-on experience with process simulation and engineering analysis.

Project 1 is assessed on a Pass/Fail basis and must be passed to pass the course.

Quiz

At the end of the lecture series there will be a short in-place quiz of 30 points which will be part of the final grade. The quiz will be based on lecture content and suggested reading. A minimum of 50% correct answers is needed in order to pass the course.

Open-ended group projects (Project 2)

A major part of the course is an open-ended group project which will commence around in the middle of the lecture section after Project 1, see schedule in Appendix. Each project will be carried out in groups of approximately 3 students with TA supervisors, or from the teaching team, depending upon the project.  A list of possible projects will be available during the course, and the students will have the possibility to select which project he/she is most interested in, after which students will be assigned a project and group as well as supervisor(s).

It should be emphasized that these are open-ended types of projects, which are directly related to a research question, and where choices of methodology and approach will need to be decided within the group. Hence, the solution may be very dependent upon the assumptions and methodologies used.  This type of project may have been encountered in previous project courses or bachelor thesis projects.  The learning objectives for the projects are highly related to the general Tracks learning objectives in addition to the last specific objective, see above.

The results of the project will be presented in the form of a poster which will be presented during a final poster session, where all project posters will be shown, and the group will also be able to present the poster to other groups and teachers. Students who wish to utilize the Tracks Environment Audio and Video studio for preparing a short presentation will be able to do this, with the help of Tracks staff.

There will also be one mandatory general seminar, where methodology or/and first-results will be presented. It will be held after about two weeks into the project, with the main aim of presenting the planning, structure, and methodology of the project and first results, if available. The idea here is to get feedback from teachers and students. The projects are expected to correspond to roughly 4-4,5 cr, i.e. about 120 h work per student.

In certain cases, and after agreement with supervisors, it may be possible for the posters to be published in the Chalmers Open Database, in which case it will be necessary for all students to sign a publishing agreement.

Lab tours

Students will be offered the possibility of a tour of the main facilities related to CCS at Chalmers.

 

Assessment

In order to pass the course, it is necessary to:

• Complete and pass Project 1
• Pass the quiz related to the lectures, with minimum 50% correct answers
• Complete open-end project, methodology/first-results presentation and poster presentation

The final grade (U, 3,4,5) will be based on completion of all compulsory elements and a weighted assessment of the project, as given in matrix in Appendix.

 

Course administration

 

Examiner:      Tobias Mattisson, tm@chalmers.se, 031-7721425

Responsible:  Tobias Mattisson, tm@chalmers.se, 031-7721425

                        Xiaoyun Li, xiaoyun.li@chalmers.se

 

Teaching Assistants:        Muhammad Nauman Saeed, mnauman@chalmers.se

                                           

Main teachers:                 Ivana Stanicic, stanicic@chalmers.se

                                          Simon Harvey, simon.harvey@chalmers.se

                                          Matty Janssen, mathias.janssen@chalmers.se

                                          Magnus Rydén, magnus.ryden@chalmers.se

                                          Xiaoyun Li, xiaoyun.li@chalmers.se

                                          Filip Johnsson, filip.johnsson@chalmers.se

                                          Jan Kjärstad, kjan@chalmers.se

                                          Mattias Fridahl, mathias.fridahl@liu.se

                                          Gry Møl Mortensen, gry.mol.mortensen@ri.se

                                          Oscar Stenström, oscar.stenstrom@chalmers.se

                     

Appendix. Overall schedule (preliminary)

Preliminary Schedule HT-2026 TRA205 Carbon capture and storage – pathways to negative emissions
Week No.	When?	Time?	Where?	What?	Who?
1	Tue 1/9	13:15-15:00	TP-L22, Teknikparken	M1, L1: Introduction to course and project info.	TM/NS
		15:15-17:00		M1, L2: Basic concepts	IS
	Thu 3/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M2, L3: Capture technologies	MR
		15:15-17:00		Aspen Tutorial & Project 1 Info.	NS
2	Tue 8/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M2, L4: Capture in industry	SH
		15:15-17:00		Project 1 Q&A	XL, NS
	Thu 10/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M3, L5: Hydrogen production with CCS	MR
		15:15-17:00		M3, L6: Carbon dioxide utilization	XL
	Fri 11/9	13:15-15:15	M3 lab&Tracks Foaje	Tour of CCS labs, Tracks at Chalmers	XL,NS
3	Tue 15/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M4, L7: Negative emissions	IS
		15:15-17:00		Submission of project 1 & Open-ended project information (Project 2)	TM/XL
	Thu 17/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M5, L8: Transportation and logistics	JK
		15:15-17:00		M5, L9: Geological storage	GM
	Fri 18/9	TBD with supervisor		Open-ended Project start-up (Project 2)	Supervisors
4	Tue 22/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M6, L10: Life cycle assessment of CCS	MJ
		15:15-17:00		M6, L11: Policy for geological net zero (Video)	OS
5	Tue 29/9	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	M7, L12: CCS and Energy Systems	FJ
		15:15-17:00		M7, L13: P Policy and governance of CCS	MF
		17:00-17:10		Summary of Lecture session	TM/XL
	Thu 1/10	13:15-17:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	Open-end project (Project 2): Methodology/first-results seminar	TM/XL/NS
6	Tue (6/10)	13:15-15:00	Seminar Room Earth, Division of Energy Technology (Floor 4, Hörsalsvägen 7B, M Building)	Quiz	XL/NS
8	Thu 22/10	13:15-17:00	Tracks Foaje, Fuse	Final Poster Presentation (Project 2)	All
TM: Tobias Mattisson, Energy Technology, Chalmers MR: Magnus Ryden, Energy Technology, Chalmers SH: Simon Harvey, Energy Technology, Chalmers MJ: Matty Janssen, Environmental System Analysis, Chalmers IS: Ivana Stanicic, Energy Technology, Chalmers FJ: Filip Johnsson, Energy Technology, Chalmers GM: Gry Møl Mortensen, RISE JK: Jan Kjärstad, Energy Technology, Chalmers MF: Matthias Fridahl, Linköping University OS: Oscar Stenström, Energy Technology, Chalmers CL: Carl Linderholm, Energy Technology, Chalmers XL: Xiaoyun Li, Energy Technology, Chalmers NS: Muhammad Nauman Saeed, Energy Technology, Chalmers

 

 

 

Appendix. Grading Criteria

To pass the course, students must complete and pass all of the following:

i) Project 1 (Pass/Fail assessment; must be passed)

ii) Quiz (minimum 50% of the total points)

iii) Project 2, including both the Project Process and Project Quality components, with a minimum of 12 points and 16 points, respectively (Parts 2 and 3 below).  

For the final grade, lectures, quiz, project 2 correspond to 3-3.5 credits and Project 2 correspond to 4-4.5 credits. The major emphasis is on the open-ended project (Project 2), and the final grade (U,3,4,5) will be assessed using the criteria in the table below, where total of >80 p for grade 5, 60-79 p for grade 4 and 40-59 p for grade 3.

Description	Assessment criteria	Max points	Grader
1.       Quiz on lecture content.	50% correct needed to pass the quiz. Bonus points from content questions	30+bonus p	Examiner
2.       Project 2 process	Process of working with project, based on general learning objectives	30 p	Supervisor
3.       Project 2 quality	Quality of project, method and results  presentations at seminar, poster and poster presentation	40 p	Examiner
Max total points		100+bonus p