The Shell Technology Centre, Bangalore, is gearing up to demonstrate its IH2 (IH square) technology for conversion of municipal and agriculture waste into liquid transport fuel.
The technology centre at Bangalore is one of the three centres set up by the global oil major Royal Dutch Shell and the other two are in Amsterdam in Netherlands and Houston in the US to develop the technology for commercial application on a large scale.
While the IH2 technology concept was developed by the Chicago-based Gas Technology Institute for conversion of municipal and agriculture waste into liquid transport fuel, the worldwide licence rights for the new technology were acquired by CRI Catalyst Company, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell.
Unique technology
Vikash Mishra, Country Head, Shell India Markets Private Limited, speaking to The Hindu explained that the technology “is unique in nature as it uses catalysts, hydrogen and heat to convert forestry, agricultural, sorted municipal waste and certain plastics inside the plant into fungible hydrocarbon transportation fuels like petrol, diesel, kerosene etc., in a cost-effective way. A demo plant with a scale of five tonnes per day is being constructed in Bangalore and will be completed by the end of this year”.
The Bangalore Centre had been working on the technology for the last six years and it succeeded in developing a key catalyst for the conversion of waste into fuel.
“The IH2 technology can be one of the game changers that can make my country a net exporter of energy,” said Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan in a tweet recently after inaugurating the new building of Bangalore Technology Centre.
Laxmi Narasimhan, General Manager, Centre of Novel Catalytic Materials at the Bangalore Centre, who has now taken the new role of Technology Advocacy Lead, says their efforts will be now to facilitate the technology to be scaled up through public-private partnership and creating awareness in villages, towns and cities about transporting the waste to dumping yards without burning it.
Mr. Narasimhan, who hails from Chilkur near here and an alumnus of Osmania University, told The Hindu that about 350 to 500 tonnes of municipal and agriculture waste was generated a day in towns and cities and it could be converted with IH2 technology to generate biofuel.
Sources from Royal Dutch Shell company shared that the fuel converted from waste was tested successfully to run BMW, Fortuner vehicles and was even used for Antarctic Expedition.
