New Delhi: India's first indigenously Designed High Ash Coal Gasification Based Methanol Production Plant at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) Research and Development Centre, Hyderabad was inaugurated on Wednesday. Member of NITI Aayog Dr V K Saraswat, Chairman of BHEL Nalin Shinghal along with BHEL’s Coal Gasification team were present to witness India's first demonstration plant of its kind, designed entirely in-house to work on high-ash Indian coal, as per a press release.
Dr V K Saraswat said, “This endeavour led to the formation of in-house design expertise in BHEL for designing greater capacity coal gasification facilities, which will provide the necessary impetus to our Prime Minister's vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat. This in-house capability will assist India's Coal Gasification Mission and Coal to Hydrogen Production for Hydrogen Mission.”
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The work on Indian high ash coal gasification began in 2016 with the support of NITI Aayog. The project was supported by the Department of Science and Technology with a Rs 10 crore grant. The plant has the capability of producing 0.25 ton per day Methanol from high ash Indian coal using a 1.2 TPD Fluidized bed gasifier. The methanol purity of the crude methanol produced is between 98 and 99.5 per cent. Development of critical processes such as the catalytic conversion of syngas to methanol is underway in BHEL.
Methanol is utilized as a motor fuel, to power ship engines, and to generate clean power all over the world. Methanol is also used to generate di-methyl ether (DME), a liquid fuel that is very similar to diesel — existing diesel engines simply need to be minimally changed to use DME instead of diesel.
The majority of worldwide methanol production is derived from natural gas, which is a relatively easy process. Since India doesn’t have many of natural gas reserves, producing methanol from imported natural gas lead to the outflow of foreign exchange and is sometimes uneconomical due to excessive prices of natural gas. The next best option is to utilise India's abundant coal. However, due to the high ash percentage of Indian coal, most internationally accessible technology will not be adequate for our demands. The plant was established to meet the demands.
