Praj Inds to set up ethanol plant in the state

Pune-based engineering company Praj Industries, which has large presence in the alternate fuel segment, plans to set up a commercial demo plant for manufacturing ethanol from bagasse.

Pramod Chaudhari, chairman and managing director, Praj Industries, told DNA the company recently achieved a breakthrough in manufacturing ethanol from non-food products such as sugarcane bagasse and corn cob on a pilot basis. The plant is expected to be up and running by 2011.

“After successful manufacturing at the lab scale and pilot scale, we are now ready to take it on a commercial scale,” Chaudhari said and added that Praj is talking to some distilleries in Maharashtra to set up an add-on facility there.

“We have not worked out the capital expenditure and operational expenditure for the plant as a lot of economics have to be worked out,” he said.

The company plans to freeze the details of the plant in the next three months.

Chaudhari said Maharashtra is the best option as the facility should be located where sugarcane bagasse is easily available. The state has a huge number of distilleries, too, and so sourcing of raw material won’t be a problem. The distilleries are currently in the off-season and Praj plans to use this time to construct the plant.

On manufacturing of ethanol from corn cob, Chaudhari said this will only be possible where ethanol is manufactured from corn. “The best place to start such a facility will be the US and the new government there is also agreeable to manufacturing ethanol from corn-related non-food products,” he said.

However, Praj currently has no plans to take the innovation to the US or the other countries where it has a foothold. “We have presence in all the five continents and can leverage this advantage whenever we want to. Currently, we want to focus on bagasse-based ethanol,” Chaudhari said.

The recent breakthrough, he said, has put India and Praj in the league of the top few that have the required technology. The experiments were conducted at the company’s research and development centre Praj Matrix - The Innovation Centre near Pune.

The laboratory at Praj Matrix began operations in April 2008 with the objective of promoting research into non-food biofuels and industrial biotech processes.

The company also has presence in environmental solutions and is keenly looking at entering two new areas of healthcare and wellness, and chemicals.