• Offered for Year: 2026/27

• Module Leader(s): Professor Jonathan Lee
• Lecturer: Dr Greg Mutch, Professor Kamelia Boodhoo, Dr Anjali Jayakumar

• Owning School: Engineering
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

• Capacity limit: 75 student places

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

This module will provide the knowledge and understanding required to critically analyse, evaluate, and design processes and technologies associated with a future net-zero carbon emissions economy, e.g. carbon dioxide capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS), and biorefining.

Biomass is one of the most valuable resources in the planet, rich in carbon, and with a multiplicity of chemical compositions present in existing by-products and residues from multiple sectors readily available for valorisation. Biomass utilisation cycles provide us with a sustainable way to capture and store carbon. Biomass is a sustainable and essential feedstock for replacement of fossil fuels towards fuels, chemicals, and materials where carbon needs to be used in a circular way. This module aims to equip students to develop, design and implement novel biorefining processes that can efficiently tackle the complexity of biomass streams to fractionate biomass, and to convert and purify biomass fractions into platform molecules and final biorenewable products that will enable the circular bioeconomy of the future.

Carbon dioxide is the primary contributor to climate change, accumulating in the atmosphere due to emissions from the energy, industrial, transport and other sectors. To mitigate climate change, and achieve net zero, widespread deployment of CCUS technologies will be required. CCUS technologies may be targeted at point source emitters (e.g. power generation, cement, steel, chemicals) to slow the rate of release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Alternatively, CCUS can be used to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air, thus physically removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Once captured, the carbon dioxide may be utilised in the production of chemicals, fuels, and other consumer products (i.e. CCU), or stored in deep geological formations (i.e. CCS).

Outline Of Syllabus

Biorefining:
-Biomass feedstocks;
-Biorefining concepts, pathways and platforms;
-Pre-treatment and fractionation technologies;
-Conversion technologies;
-Purification technologies;
-Biotechnology;
-Biorenewable products;
-Case Studies.

CCUS:
-CCS processes: pre-, post-, and oxyfuel-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).
-Carbon dioxide capture technologies: liquid absorption, solid adsorption, and membrane processes, and application to CO2 sources: point sources and direct air-capture.
-Carbon dioxide utilisation technologies: direct methods (i.e. not chemically changed) in consumer products and indirect methods (i.e. chemically transformed) in the synthesis of chemicals and fuels.
-Carbon dioxide storage: the transport and storage of captured CO2 in pipelines, saline aquifers, depleted oil & gas reservoirs, and other deep geological formations.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures will deliver the theory content of the module and will allow students to engage in classroom discussions. Tutorials will be used to practice problem solving and for group discussions, jointly with online discussions. Research site and industrial visits, jointly with guided literature reading and articles research will allow students to become familiar with information sources for novel technology developments, which are critical in this field. Guided independent study will allow students to solidify and strength their knowledge and skills and prepare for assessment.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Exams

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The exam will test a broad range of knowledge and skills in terms of process development for CCSU and biorefining (AHEP4, M2, M7). The Journal Club presentation will allow students to develop their research skills, awareness of research state of the art, and presentation skills(AHEP4 M2, M4, M7, M16-M17). Formative online informal quizzes will test students acquisition of learning throughout the module (AHEP4 M2, M4, M7).

Reading Lists

• CME8419's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• CME8419's Timetable