NSI, IISR to work jointly on making tech for ethanol prodn

Kanpur: National Sugar Institute (NSI), Kanpur and Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research (IISR), Lucknow will jointly work on developing technology for production of second generation, 2G ethanol so as to enable country to meet its requirement of ethanol blending in petrol.
The country will require about 10,000 million liters of ethanol for blending it @20% in petrol by 2025.For the purpose, IISR director Dr Rasappa Vishwanath visited NSI on Wednesday and discussed the matter with Narendra Mohan, Director, and other scientists of the institute.
The two institutes aim to develop a low cost technology for production of ethanol from bagasse, which otherwise is used mainly as fuel for burning in boilers.
“Sugar factories, even after meeting their own requirements save about five million metric ton of bagasse per annum which can be utilized for production of ethanol. For the purpose, the cellulose present in the bagasse is to be converted into ethanol and therefore apart from 2G, it is also known as cellulosic ethanol,” said Narendra Mohan.
“We will extend our studies on other abundantly available cheap raw materials and waste viz. wheat straw, rice straw and cotton stalk etc. too as utilization of these material in such a manner will also help in solving issues related to pollution due to stubble burning,” he added.
2G ethanol production technologies have faced lot of challenges to be economically and technologically viable despite more than 100 pilot plant and tens of demonstration and commercial plant commissioned globally. Together, we aim to work out technology requiring lower capital and operational cost so as to ensure lower cost of production and making units viable, said Director, Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research.