CHEM 750/7500-02 - Energy & Environment

Semester: Fall 2026

Professor: K. Ghandi | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Guelph

Description

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this course, students are expected to

  1. Explain the details of at least one type of energy industry in depth,
  2. Use effective communication skills for oral presentations while strengthening their skills in working with different sources to develop research and analytical skills relevant to the energy industry,
  3. Evaluate the environmental impacts of the Energy Industry.
  4. Analyze modern literature related to the Energy Industry and its Environmental Impacts,
  5. Write a research proposal to address problems in the Energy industry.

The course includes lectures, invited speakers, field trips (if the logistics can be arranged), completion of term papers and presentations. An undergraduate background in physical chemistry or physics is expected. Students with only an undergraduate degree in engineering should consult with the instructor before registering.

The following is the proposed chronological list of subjects:

  • Efficiency and energy conservations
  • Principles of electrical generators and transformers
  • Fossil fuels and their environmental impact
  • Bio-based energy industry
  • Semiconductor materials and photovoltaic panels
  • Nuclear energy: Fission and fusion-based
  • Environmental impacts of different types of electricity and thermal sources
  • Innovation in the energy industry and business aspects of this industry (this will address some futuristic aspects in the context of the industry).

Finally, it should be mentioned that in the view of the instructor, the topics of Energy and Environment are very relevant to equity, diversity, inclusion, Indigenization, or decolonization. Within such commitments, the instructor will include the relevant context within the topics of Energy and Environment for discussions in class when appropriate.

Materials

Reading material will be based on research articles, review articles and some book chapters and will be emailed to the class or if both Waterloo and Guelph students have access to CourseLink, they will be posted on CourseLink.

Evaluation

The proposed marking scheme is as follows. It will be explicitly detailed on the first day of class:

Assignments 40%. There will be 4 assignments, each worth 10 marks. Assignments require essay-style writing, calculations and may require drawings or illustrations. The due dates for them are 5 pm on Sep 20, October 10, October 30, and November 20

Final Exam (take-home) 20%: Deadline: December 12. The final exam requires essay-style writing, calculations and may require drawings or illustrations. The date of issue of the exam will be on November 30.

Term Projects and Presentations 40%

  • 2 projects and presentations. Each project includes a mini review article, and the student also presents that review to the class. The review can be on any subject related to the energy industry, including the environmental impacts and environmental technologies related to the energy industry. Subjects should be selected and confirmed by the instructor on or before September 15, 2023. You need first to find the most recent review article and then write your own review of all research articles related to that subject published after the review article. If there is no review article related to your topic in the literature, the research articles reviewed should include mostly the papers published over the last 5 years.
  • Each project is a review article on a subject of your interest. There is no format limitation or maximum space limit. The review is expected to be around 10 pages single-spaced (including drawings, figures and reaction schemes), not including the references. You need to decide on your subject of interest. Anyone who selects a subject will let me know, and I will announce it so that the rest will not select that subject. You will find the most recent review article on that subject, and your review will be a summary of that review article and all research papers published after that review article. Please see the above comment for the cases where there is no such review article in the literature.
  • You will be marked based on the quality of your review (not missing discussion of the relevant published research articles is an important criterion; also, harmonious writing rather than a scattered report is another important criterion) and your presentation.
  • Your presentation to class will be marked by all class (including me). The students are asked to provide instructive feedback to the instructor. The instructor will summarize and share the feedback without names with the presenter. The total project mark is 30% for review papers (to be submitted as a Word file) and 10% on presentations.
  • Presentation to class marks: 3 for learning content (You also need to describe the concepts.), 2 for clarity, 2 for the degree of engaging presentation, and 3 for answering questions. Each presentation is normally 40 minutes, followed by questions.

All review papers should be sent to me via email in Word format. The first review paper should be sent by October 15 and the second one by November 29. The papers can be sent at any time before those dates, too. However, the feedback to improve them (to get better marks) will be sent only to those who send me the papers at least a week before the due date. It is in your best interest to send me your first draft as soon as possible during the semester, since you won’t get a mark for drafts and receive the mark only on the final version. This way, you can receive feedback early on to improve your reviews.

The presentation dates will be determined by a draw on the first day of class.

Lab/Project

TBA

Schedule

  • Wed: 7:00 pm - 9:20 pm in MacN 101

Office Hours

[email protected]; Cell number: 519-993-7312