Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) today signed an agreement with Finland-based Chempolis Oy for carrying out a feasibility study for production of ethanol from bamboo biomass.
The MoU was signed between Director(Technical) NRL S R Medhi and Chempolis President Asia-Pacific and Americas Pasi Rousu in the presence of NRL Managing Director P Padmanabhan and Chempolis India President Navin Singhania.
According to the MoU, NRL and Chempolis shall jointly undertake an assessment study for ascertaining availability of the required feedstock in North Eastern India.
NRL and Chempolis shall co-ordinate with various government and private agencies to identify the main feedstock supply areas in North Eastern India and explore tie ups with prospective suppliers for supplying the feed stock for the proposed plant.
Chempolis shall also carry out experimental testing of various specimens of bamboo and other potential biomass feedstock materials available in North Eastern India.
Chempolis Oy has developed formicobio technology for processing non-food raw materials into cellulosic ethanol, cellulosic sugars, bio-chemicals and bio-coal.
NRL intends to explore the feasibility of setting up a bio-refinery in Assam to produce bio-ethanol using non-food bio-mass resources like bamboo.
Production of fuel grade ethanol shall reduce NRL's requirement of imported MTBE and Py-Gas for MS blending due to higher octane number of ethanol and shall result in net savings for NRL.
