Unit 3: Geologists: investigating rock porosity

Dense and porous rock formations can be used to permanently store carbon dioxide underground. We started the session by looking at different types of rocks and writing down observations:

We then chose sandstone to check its porosity:

 

Here are our findings:

Testing rock porosity – sandstone

Sample number	Mass before (g)	Mass after  (g)	Difference  (g)
1	68.0	68.7	0.7
2	60.3	64.6	4.3
3	79.8	85.5	5.7
4	54.2	58.1	3.9
5	72.8	78.3	5.5
6	82.6	88.8	6.2
7	38.7	41.3	2.6
8	27.2	27.9	0.7
9	88.8	93.7	4.9
10	53.8	57.9	4.1

Unit 3: Transport Engineers: Investigating Pressure and Transport

To transport carbon dioxide in a safe and efficient way, we need to consider a number of factors. For example, how pressure is going to affect it.

Experiment 1 - what happens to the pressure of a gas when it is contained in a small space?

Experiment 2 - how can carbon dioxide be transported most efficiently?

Unit 3: Carbon Dioxide Properties and Capture - Chemists

In today's session we looked at the properties of carbon dioxide. This is important because we need to know if it is suitable for underground storage. This will also help to check if it leaks into groundwater or into the surface. 

Carbon dioxide is denser than air:
Experiment 1

Experiment 2:

Carbon dioxide turns limewater milky/cloudy. This is because white solid, calcium carbonate, is formed:

 

We noted down our findings on the worksheet: 

 

Unit 2: Make a Power Station

Today we put into test the knowledge gained in the previous session and attempted to create a power station.

Planning:

Practical:

Unit 2: Process flow

Today we looked at all the steps involved in making electricity. We started by cutting out the cards and trying to arrange them into a logical order. We discussed why each step is important and what issues may occur should something go wrong.

Then we matched the pictures to the correct cards and glued them all together to show how electricity is made.

As you can see a lot of steps are required so we can enjoy having electricity in our homes.

Unit 1: Hitting the target

In this session we analysed the number of units of energy our households are using every day:

Then, we were given the following scenario:

“It is the year 2017 and the EU has limited energy production in both renewable and non-renewable sources so that no more than 5000 tonnes of CO2 is produced per week in the UK.

This means that a household of 4 people has an allocated energy budget of 39kWh (= 39 units) per day.”

The average home in the UK uses 85 kWh per day. Our job was to look at the energy our homes are using to see where the savings are possible. We found this task really challenging!

Lastly, we looked at what the communities can do in order to reduce the amount of energy we are using: