Indian Oil Corporation to Team up with Honeywell International Subsidiary on Biofuel Project

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Chemical processing technology developer UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Illinois), a subsidiary of Honeywell International Incorporated (NYSE:HON) (Honeywell) (Morris Town, New Jersey), has announced that it will collaborate with the state-run Indian Oil Corporation Limited (BSE:530965) (IOC) (New Delhi) in researching and developing the production of green transportation fuels from non-food feedstock.

The collaboration between the two companies is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in India by developing sustainable and viable alternatives to carbon-based fossil fuels. IOC is keen to become more cost-effective in reducing its carbon footprint and is aiming at a 25% reduction in carbon emissions.

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will investigate the establishment of a demonstration-scale biofuel plant at an existing IOC location, using domestic non-food feedstock available in India. The project will evaluate the use of pyrolysis technology to convert plant biomass into both power and heat.

Pyrolysis is a chemical process that involves the application of heat to decompose the biomass into biodiesel, which can then be used to replace traditional carbon-based diesel fuel. Honeywell's Ecofining technology uses catalytic hydroprocessing to convert natural oils and fats into Honeywell Green Diesel fuel.

The resulting green diesel fuel is indistinguishable chemically from traditional diesel fuel and has improved cold-flow properties with reduced emissions over petroleum- based and other biodiesel fuels. It has a higher cetane value--the measurement of the combustive quality of diesel fuel under compression--than competitive fuels, leading to more efficient combustion and reduced costs.

In 2008, UOP formed joint venture company Envergent Technologies LLC (Des Plaines) with Ensyn Corporation (Ottawa, Canada), specifically to produce pyrolysis oil from biomass for use in power, heat and green transportation, while using Ensyn's Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) technology.

The RTP technology claims to be able to convert biomass to liquid in less than two seconds by injecting sand at a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius into the biomass, which is then rapidly cooled to produce a pourable liquid oil.

UOP also developed a proprietary technology under a 2007 contract from the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for green aviation fuel. The resulting Honeywell Green Jet Fuel meets all the critical requirements for aviation fuel while offering reductions in nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions.

The Green Jet fuel is produced from camelina or jatropha, an inedible plant that can be grown in locations unsuitable for food crops. In the process, hydrogen is added to remove oxygen from the natural oils in the plant, and the resulting green jet fuel can be blended in a 50:50 mix with petroleum-based aviation fuel and used with no changes to the aircraft configuration. A demonstration flight using the green jet fuel was made in November last year by a Boeing 747 to illustrate the viability of the process.

Testing on the green jet fuel conducted by Honeywell in 2009 showed that exhaust smoke and particulate emissions could be reduced between 15% and 50%, depending on the power setting of the motor, as a result of the lower aromatics content of the biofuel.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. IIR's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.