Praj announce new ethanol demo plant in India

Engineering and technology provider Praj Industries is to move into India as it further explores second generation biofuels.

A 10 million litres a year demonstration commercial plant represents a continuation of Praj’s lignocellulose to ethanol programme as it seeks ways to produce ethanol from non-food based feedstock.

Praj will use the plant to demonstrate technical and commercial viability, as well as optimisation of water and energy integration and its impact on future financial proposals. The plant also hopes to develop an entire value chain including feed handling and feedsock characteristics and its impact on the operations.

‘The successful demonstration of various parameters at the demo-commercial plant will put us at the forefront of the biobased economy and in the race for commercial scale second generation biofuels,’ Praj executive chairman Pramod Chaudhari said at a recent ethanol conference in Germany. ‘While this plant size is appropriate for emerging markets, with our past experience of quick scale up, it will be well within our capability to scale the capacity up even 10 times. I am pleased to say that Praj will be the first in the tropics to set up such an integrated facility in the tropics.’

Praj expects to break ground on the proposed €19.6 million ($25 million) project next year.