L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering (LTHE), a provider of design-to-build engineering and construction solutions across the hydrocarbon spectrum to global majors, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) to build Ethanol plants based on the fully indigenous technology developed by ICT for producing Second Generation Ethanol. This novel technology developed by ICT under the leadership of Dr. Arvind Lali, Head of DBT-ICT Centre, is capable of processing a variety of feedstocks and offers one of the lowest project life cycle cost.
Today, India is producing about 3% bio-ethanol blending with Ethanol derived from molasses, which is called first Generation (1G) Ethanol. There is a huge impetus from the Government of India to set up second Generation (2G) Ethanol plants in order to achieve the ambitious target of 20% blending of bio-fuels. Prof. G.D. Yadav, Vice Chancellor, ICT, stated that the Department of Bio-Technology (DBT), Government of India, set up India’s first bio-energy research centre at ICT in 2008, known as the DBT-ICT Centre for Bio-science, with the express mandate to develop, scale up and monetize the 2G Ethanol bio-ethanol technology.
LTHE and ICT will collaborate to provide complete solutions in setting up 2G Ethanol plants in terms of Process License, Technology Knowhow, Basic Engineering, Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) or Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM).