Tata Chemicals Plans India's First Sweet-Sorghum-Based Ethanol Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Tata Chemicals Limited (BSE:500770) (Mumbai), the country's leading manufacturer of inorganic chemicals, is set to move into the production of ethanol with the commissioning of India's first ethanol plant based on sweet sorghum in Nanded, Maharashtra. Following an initial investment of $10 million to develop a prototype unit, the firm plans to invest up to $150 million in this segment over the next three to four years. Praj Industries Limited (BSE:522205) (Pune, Maharashtra), a manufacturer of distillation equipment, is the designer and builder of the plant.

The plant, which is being touted as the country's smallest commercial plant, will initially operate at a capacity of 30,000 liters per day as opposed to conventional commercial plants that have an operating capacity of 100,000 liters per day. The capacity of the plant will be ramped up to 130,000 liters per day at an investment of $30 million and subsequently to 500,000 liters per day over a period of three to four years. The unit is expected to commence operation at full capacity of 8 million liters per year by 2010. The existing unit will be equipped with a captive cogeneration power plant with a capacity of 7 megawatts, which will be stepped up as the plant's capacity is increased.

The ethanol plant will be equipped with a fermentation and distillation system and will use sweet sorghum juice and sugar beet as raw material. The plant will have a crushing capacity of 900 tons per day of sweet sorghum stalks. In order to secure feedstock supplies for the plant, Tata Chemicals has been cultivating sweet sorghum on 450 hectares in Maharashtra with assistance from the National Research Center for Sorghum (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh), which supplied the firm with planting materials and production technology.

Sweet sorghum has proven advantages over other crops as feedstock for ethanol production in terms of sustainability, processing efficiency and superior byproducts, such as bagasse, which serves as high-quality cattle feed. It can be cultivated on otherwise nonarable land and is inexpensive to grow. The crop is also competitive on the cost aspect of ethanol production. Production of 100 liters of ethanol using sweet sorghum entails a cost of $82 as opposed to corn that costs $89 and sugarcane that costs $112 to produce the same volume of ethanol.

A team of 35 scientists based in Tata Chemicals' Innovation Center in Pune is researching uses of byproducts from the ethanol plant. The firm is planning to utilize natural sweeteners present in sorghum syrup to manufacture sugar derivative products, such as zero-calorie sweeteners and biopolymers from the glycerin streams of biodiesel.

The company cites nonavailability of land and high-quality feedstock in addition to insufficient research in biodiversity, environmental and social impact as the main factors inhibiting the use of sweet sorghum to produce ethanol. The firm is contemplating setting up similar units in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

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