India-Based SunLight Fuels Licenses Tech to Produce Liquid Fuels From Agricultural Waste
Sunlight Fuels Private Limited (Sunlight Fuels), headquartered in New Delhi, India, has entered into a license agreement for IH2 Technology* with a Singapore-based affiliate of CRI Catalyst Company LP (CRI), a global catalyst technology company of the Shell Group. IH2 technology is a continuous catalytic thermo-chemical process which produces hydrocarbon transportation fuels from agricultural, forest and sorted municipal residues.
The Sunlight Fuels agreement is the first IH2 FEL-2 license granted in India for a commercial scale plant. The plant will be designed with the potential to convert 500 tonnes/day of dry bagasse into approximately 150 tonnes/day of liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuel. Bagasse is the fibrous residue remaining after the extraction of juice from the crushed stalks of sugarcane. Because only the inedible residue is used in the IH2process, there is no direct competition between food and fuel. The plant is being engineered to sit adjacent to an operating sugar mill, with only the residual bagasse entering the new IH2 process facility.
SunLight Fuels’ founders have experience in feedstock sourcing, preparation, technology and operations, oil and gas engineering and financial services. The IH2 technology license to SunLight Fuels is the first license to be issued for a plant engineered to process bagasse. India, as the world’s second largest bagasse producer, is positioned to benefit from utilizing this sustainable resource.
The FEL-2 engineering package is being completed for the green-field IH2 process plant by KBR, Inc. (KBR), CRI’s exclusive FEED engineering services provider.
The IH2 technology is a conversion route for agricultural and other residues which allows for production of clean transportation fuels from renewable resources. The process was developed by Gas Technology Institute (GTI) of Des Plaines, IL in 2009. GTI and CRI have jointly continued development of the technology since 2010. CRI has been granted exclusive worldwide licensing rights.
*IH2 is a trademark of Gas Technology Institute.
Image credit: By Rufino Uribe – caña de azúcar, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1155927
