The Hindu Business Line : Praj Industries opens R&D facility in Pune

Pune, April 21 Praj Industries Ltd, a bioprocesses and engineering firm, has inaugurated its research and development centre, Matrix, at Pirangut in Pune. The facility is spread over five acres and is being developed over two phases, Mr Pramod Chaudhari, Chief Executive Officer, Praj Industries, said here on Monday.

Talking to presspersons, he said about Rs 30 crore has been invested in the first phase and another Rs 30 crore would be utilised in the second phase, which would be completed by September this year. The first phase has 12 laboratories, seven clean room facilities, cellulose to ethanol and biodiesel pilot plant. It also houses a brewery laboratory as per European brewing convention standards.

Mr Pramod said Praj has created a process development for high-energy ethanol blends. He noted that for long, detractors of ethanol had been claiming that ethanol did not have the equivalent energy content as gasoline. The innovation centre, he said, has achieved a breakthrough in developing the high-energy ethanol mixture having 30 per cent more energy content, which could be directly blended with gasoline.

He noted that this has been done by developing a special micro-organism which converted simple sugars into high energy ethanol mixture. He said it is successful at the laboratory stage and plans were to work out with oil marketing companies for commercialisation of the product blend.

Patent file

He said it has also filed two provisional patents in India, for the process as well as for the product recovery. Mr Pramod said with bioethanol and biodiesel coming under increased criticism for diverting food resources and driving up the food prices across the globe, second-generation biofuels were gaining as a solution. Biofuels made from ligno cellulosic feeds such as straw, grasses and wood chips had been considered as an alternate for the grain-based ethanol.

He noted that Matrix has brought in a technology, which involved pre-treatment process for agri waste followed by the use of specific micro organism for fermentation. Lab-scale studies have been successful and further work on improved economic viability was underway.

He said Praj has filed a patent for this in India.

He noted that many projects were underway in the US and Europe and the target they had fixed for commercialisation is 2010-11. Praj has set the target as 2010 to have the commercial demonstration and establish the techno economic feasibility of using ligno cellulosic feed.

Separate division

Mr Pramod said following its success with sweet sorghum, Praj has created a separate division to deal with plant tissue culture, variety selection, farm yield study and cultivation practices for the second generation energy crop cultivation including algae for biodiesel.

This division would also address issues such as post harvest management which was also critical for such crops. He said it was also testing repeatability for algae and would be conducting pilot tests in August-September this year and was also looking at commercial development. He added that it was also looking at exploring tie-ups with partners to take this ahead.

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