IISc, IOCL to develop tech for biomass gasification

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Research and Development Centre of IndianOil Corporation Limited signed an MoU to develop biomass gasification-based hydrogen-generation technology.

The project aims to generate affordable fuel cell-grade hydrogen.

In the MoU which was signed on October 29, IISc and IndianOil will work jointly on the optimisation of biomass gasification and hydrogen purification processes. The developed technology will eventually be scaled up and demonstrated at IndianOil’s R&D Centre at Faridabad.

IISc said that hydrogen generated from this demonstration plant will be used to power fuel cell buses. The project is a bid by IndianOil to infuse hydrogen fuel on a larger scale into the Indian economy.

IISc Director Prof G Rangarajan encouraged the academia-industry collaboration and highlighted contributions made by Prof S Dasappa at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies and currently the Chair at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research for utilising biomass, which would help India meet decarbonisation targets.

Dr Ramakumar, Director (R&D), IndianOil, said that hydrogen clean energy is an alternative to conventional fossil fuels. He added that fuel cell electric vehicles are powered by hydrogen and emit only pure water as tailpipe emissions. However, fuel cell technology for an automotive application requires ultrapure hydrogen with impurities less than the level of parts per billion (ppb).

Indian Oil Corporation has launched trials with 50 buses in Delhi using hydrogen-CNG as a fuel.

Hydrogen production technology based on biomass gasification developed by IISc comprises processes for producing hydrogen-rich syngas from biomass and separation of hydrogen from syngas. The institute said it has worked extensively on biomass gasification and developed a process for the production of hydrogen-rich syngas.

IISc said that the “technology envisaged under this programme would not only provide a cleaner energy option for India but will also be a step towards addressing the challenge of biomass waste.”