India’s first indigenously Designed High Ash Coal Gasification Based Methanol Production Plant at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) Research and Development Centre, Hyderabad was inaugurated. The project was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, which provided a Rs 10 crore grant, at the initiative of NITI Aayog, PMO-India and the Ministry of Coal.
About the plant:
- The facility can create 0.25 ton per day (TPD) Methanol from high ash Indian coal using a 1.2 TPD Fluidized bed gasifier.
- The purity of the crude methanol produced is between 98 and 99.5 per cent.
What is Methanol?
Methanol is utilized as a motor fuel, to power ship engines, and to generate clean power all over the world. Methanol is also used to generate di-methyl ether (DME), a liquid fuel that is very similar to diesel — existing diesel engines simply need to be minimally changed to use DME instead of diesel.
BHEL's indigenously developed Coal to Methanol plant at Hyderabad, which uses high ash Indian coal to produce methanol. The project is a step toward Methanol Economy.
