Short Article

25-08-2022 | 13:19 PM

Country’s first 2G Ethanol Plant

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently inaugurated India’s first “second generation (2G)” Ethanol plant in Panipat, Haryana.

• The plant is based on state-of-the-art indigenous technology and is built at an estimated cost of over Rs 900 crore by IOCL and is located close to the Panipat Refinery.

• The plant can utilize two lakh tonnes of rice straw annually to produce about 30 million liters of ethanol annually.

• It will produce 100 kilolitre ethanol per day, after processing 750-tonne paddy straw in a day.

• This plant would provide employment to around 250 people directly and to 1000 people indirectly.

• The plant is based on ‘Enfinity’ technology developed by private firm Praj Industries Limited.

• Through the reduction in the burning of rice straw (parali), the project will contribute to a reduction of Greenhouse Gases equivalent to about 3 lakh tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent emissions per annum, which can be understood as equivalent to replacing nearly 63,000 cars annually on the country’s roads.

• The first generation (1G) ethanol is manufactured from feedstock such as cereals, sugarcane juice and molasses as raw materials while Second Generation (2G) feed stocks include agri-residues like rice & wheat straw, cane trash, corn cobs & stover, cotton stalk, bagasse, Empty Fruit bunches (EFB), etc.