PUNE: The MACS-Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) along with Sentient Labs, a research and development innovation laboratory incubated by KPIT Technologies, has developed the world’s first technology that generates hydrogen directly from agricultural residue for use in fuel cell-powered vehicles.
The hydrogen generation technology uses agricultural residue rich in cellulose and hemicellulose content – in the likes of paddy, wheat, or maize residue. The process uses microbial culture for the direct generation of hydrogen from agricultural residues. It further generates methane, which is utilised for producing additional hydrogen by steam methane reformation. This process can avoid the burning of bio-mass generated in large measure in the Indian countryside and generate organic manure and CO2 that find application in various industries.
Dr Dhakephalkar, director of ARI, said on the occasion, “Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology is billed as the next big step in the direction of sustainable mobility as it provides a large operating range, is suitable for commercial vehicles, and leaves a minimal environmental footprint. The need of the hour in crude oil-importing nations is to rapidly move towards self-reliant energy sources and sustainable mobility. The hydrogen generated from this technology will be utilised to power fuel cell vehicles that emit only water, thus making the entire cycle pollution-free.”
The vision is to build technology solutions for the electrification of mobility. The bottlenecks in battery technology, fuel cell technology and technology for hydrogen generation have been identified and multiple efforts are underway to create the building blocks required for sustainable mobility.
{{/usCountry}}The vision is to build technology solutions for the electrification of mobility. The bottlenecks in battery technology, fuel cell technology and technology for hydrogen generation have been identified and multiple efforts are underway to create the building blocks required for sustainable mobility.
{{/usCountry}}Dr Dhakephalkar said, “Our technology is 25% more efficient as compared to conventional anaerobic digestion processes used today. The innovative two-stage process eliminates the pre-treatment of the biomass, thus making the process economical and environmentally-friendly. This biologically benign process generates digestate rich in nutrients which can be used as organic fertiliser. Its byproducts can be used as soil conditioners while undigested solids for briquetting that can be sold as solid fuel. I thank the scientists and engineers at Agharkar Research Institute and Sentient Labs for this achievement.”
While Ravi Pandit, chairman of Sentient Labs, said, “We incubated Sentient Labs to work on technology research and development projects related to mobility and energy. This innovation affirms our commitment to mission hydrogen and the ‘Make in India’ charter by the government. This breakthrough of generating hydrogen from unutilised agricultural residue will help us become self-reliant in terms of energy resources. It will also add a major stream of revenue to the farmers’ community. We will continue research and development and invite partners to come on board for production and commercialising of the same.”
The MACS-Agharkar Research Institute is committed to conducting basic and applied research in life sciences to harness the genetic diversity of microbes for bio-energy generation and has been working towards developing solutions that are appropriate for national use.