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6 SUMMARY &

CONCLUSIONS

ethanol and Di Methyl Ether (DME) are emerging as alternative liquid fuels for
transportation. During the last few years the use of methanol and DME as fuel has
Mincreased significantly. Methanol demand is growing at a robust 6 to 8 % annually. In
India, the use of both methanol and DME as fuel component is very low at present. Currently,
there is surplus production of methanol in the world but the demand in India is much more than
the indigenous production, due to its use and feedstock for other chemicals.

Unlike gasoline or diesel which are mostly produced from petroleum crude, methanol and
DME could be produced from renewable sources, such as biomass via syngas or via reforming
of biogas. With the increasing concern about GHG emission from energy usage, the fuels
produced from renewable sources are increasingly favoured over the non-renewable sources.
From biomass virtually carbon neutral fuel is possible to be produced.
The availability of biomass resources is much lower than the total demand of fuels. It is
estimated that about 20% of the fossil based fuel is possible to be replaced with biomass. To
sustain the increasing energy demand in the developing countries, dependence on fossil fuel
will remain for many years to come, till viable renewable energy is available and delivered to
the user. The current trend in the world is to have more focus on capture of carbon dioxide if
fossil fuel is used for production of methanol/DME.

In India all the methanol plants are based on natural gas or naphtha. Although there is great
demand for methanol in India, the availability of natural gas and price of naphtha along with
the low import price of methanol, is preventing the building of new plants. There are several
proposals for putting up of large methanol plants from Indian coal and also from petroleum
coke.
The utilization of biomass in India is not very well organized. Much of this is burnt as such in
several biomass to power plants based on complete combustion mode. Since late 90’s several
gasification units were operating in India based on gasification technology developed by Indian
research groups. These were small units producing as low as 20 KWH energy. So far in India,
only generation of power was considered from biomass. Production of chemicals was never
in the agenda.
Although India is having many biogas plants through anaerobic digestion, most of them are
small capacity and in most cases cater the local requirements at a very low investment cost. It
may not be worth to consider this segment for methanol or DME production.
The technology for all the possibilities for production of methanol & DME based on coal or
other hydrocarbon feedstocks are available locally or from overseas licensors. Even if some of
these technologies are not fully matured, particularly for small scale gasification and chemical
production, demonstration plants could be designed and operated.

88 Methanol and DME Production: Survey and Roadmap | 2017