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 TOWARDS
ETHANOL
Ethanol, a
by-product of the sugar industry, is a good oxygenate and,
when used as a blend with motor spirit, substantially
reduces vehicular emissions and the resultant pollution.
With the increasing demand for this by-product, we are
looking at ethanol production as one of the major thrust
areas for future. Our 30 KL per day of industrial alcohol
unit had commenced production in February 2005.
In the year 2008-2009, we generated revenue of Rs. 773.56
lacs through this business.
Ethanol is one of the additives in petrol. The mixing of
ethanol with petrol has been made mandatory in nine states
including the state of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra etc. The government of India
is keen to increase the mixing percentage from 5% to 10% and
that too in all states of India. According to a
report by HDFC Securities, ethanol is set to become a stable
revenue stream for the sugar industry because the global
trend of using greater percentage of ethanol in petroleum
will catch up in India.
How alcohol is produced:
Molasses, one of the by-products in sugar industry is a
dark, viscous by-product and has nearly 45-50% of
fermentable sugar. In a distillery sugar from molasses is
fermented, distilled to manufacture industrial alcohol. The
industrial alcohol in turn can further be used for
manufacture of IMFL and Country Liquor.
With certain add-on facilities the industrial alcohol can be
further refined to produce absolute alcohol or gasohol, an
eco-friendly substitute for fuel to be used in petrol driven
vehicles. The use of gasohol as substitute for fuel offers
exciting opportunity to conserve the scarce foreign exchange
reserves of the country. |
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