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INDIAN SCENARIO

Today, there are several laboratories including National Chemical Laboratory, IITs and the
recently started National Centre for Catalyst Research in IIT Chennai which are quite active
in developing novel catalyst systems for different applications, including coal and syngas
conversion.

India’s first IGCC demonstration unit has been operating since 1988. Based on this experience,
a plant for 100 MW was also considered by Govt. of India to be set up by BHEL. This proposed
IGCC plant was based on the Pressurized Fluidized Bed (PFB) concept and was ideally suited
for the high ash (35% to 45%) Indian coal. Since there was not much international experience
available with PFB, BHEL R&D facilities were used, for arriving at the design of the ~100 MW
plant [82]. The feasibility was established but the plant has not come up yet.
Prior to this, a joint study was carried out by CSIR India and USA in 1991. It was decided to
set up demonstration units during 8th and 9th plan. It was proposed to replace natural gas by
coal gas, through installation of coal gasifiers in the Combined Cycle plants for smaller units
(20 to 100 MW) and installation of IGCC for new units of 300 MW during the 10th plan (2002
to 2007). However, nothing much has happened in this direction for the introduction of IGCC
technology [83].
During mid-90s, Indian Oil, GAIL and Indian Institute of Petroleum started working with AMOCO
to introduce DME in India. The plan was to bring DME from Qatar for seeding Indian market by
2004. This was the time, when DME had just started getting attention around the world. China
also had a similar tie up with AMOCO at that time.
Plasma is a comparatively new route for gasification and India has an operating plant based
on this process, near Pune, with imported technology. The Facilitation Centre for Industrial
Plasma Technologies (FCIPT), Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar is also quite active
in utilizing plasma to dispose medical and other waste. They have already established credibility
in developing systems for hospital waste management. They are able to design small scale (15
to 20Kg/Hr.) gasifier for MSW [5]. With the operating experience of the Pune unit and support
from Institute for Plasma Research, it should be possible to put up a pilot plant to establish the
technical and commercial feasibility for production of methanol from biomass, low grade coal
or municipal waste using plasma processes.
On production of methanol or DME directly from syngas, at this moment there is no decent
capacity plant in any research establishment in India. However, most of IIT’s and other research
centres are exploring many novel options for the process and catalysts for syngas conversion
to chemicals.
In the area of in situ gasification and underground gasification, Indian R&D had been very
active and several agencies have been working in this area. However, this is yet to be fully
exploited for commercial benefits [84].

On utilization of biomass and generation of renewable energy, Govt. of India has drawn up an
exhaustive R&D programme for 11th Plan period [85]. This list covers almost all the areas of
technology development for utilization of biomass. However, this list does not cover methanol
or DME production via gasification and syngas production.

There are many laboratories working on production, storage and utilization of hydrogen. A
list of all the R&D activities in this area and the research organizations working on different
projects is available in the report by Govt. of India [86]. The thrust area is to generate hydrogen
from renewable resources. This activity could be easily linked with carbon dioxide reforming
for production of methanol and DME. This strategy will not only help to reduce carbon dioxide
emission but also produce valuable fuel. It is worth looking into this possibility of putting up a
pilot unit by integrating hydrogen production from renewable resources and available carbon
dioxide to produce methanol.

Methanol and DME Production: Survey and Roadmap | 2017 73