Research Projects

At COP26 climate summit, India has set the target of achieving Net Zero carbon emissions by 2070. Rapid industrial growth, population rise and urgent need for a low-carbon economy make it crucial to embrace sustainable development, pressing the need to transition to renewable energy. India is one of the major agricultural economies; it leverages a unique prospect of harnessing its agricultural residues to sustainable fuels and chemicals acting as replacements for polluting non-renewable fossil resources. In this context, PI has proposed a win-win notion of harnessing these waste biomass residues to renewable gasoline-range hydrocarbon mixture through a closed-loop approach. Waste biomass will be first converted into H₂-CO enriched syngas and porous graphitic carbon (PGC), followed by subsequent syngas conversion to gasoline range hydrocarbons (C₅-C₁₂) using Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis. Corncob, a by-product of maize, has been selected as biomass residue due to its high generation, high carbon & hydrogen content and natural porous structure. Biomass mixed with K₂FeO₄ will undergo high-temperature devolatilization, synchronizing both biomass activation and graphitization in a single step, producing porous graphitic carbon and syngas. Here, PI has proposed a novel circular approach of employing biomass-derived porous graphitic carbon as catalyst in the FT synthesis. Iron is a preferred industrial FT catalyst due to its low cost, high activity, high tolerance to impurities and flexibility with low H₂/CO feedstocks. However, its frequent deactivation due to carbon deposition and iron phase change limits the large-scale operations. Dispersing iron active sites over porous graphitic carbon will solve the issue by increasing catalytic activity and stability, due to its high surface area, high reducibility, thermal stability and electronic conductivity. Furthermore, utilization of K₂FeO₄ during PGC generation will provide additional K and Fe active phases intercalated within the carbon matrix. Potassium will promote CO activation and dissociation by increasing electron donation between iron active sites and adsorbed CO, enhancing selectivity towards C5+ hydrocarbons. Steam-mediated tar reforming followed by water gas shift conversion and several cleaning stages like isopropyl alcohol-based residual tar trapping, monoethanolamine (MEA) mediated CO₂ scrubbing, activated carbon and silica gel bed-based adsorption will produce H₂-CO enriched syngas suitable for FT synthesis. Carbon conversion (above 70%) and selectivity towards gasoline range hydrocarbon (C₅-C₁₂) (above 40%) is targeted through fine-tuning of process parameters and catalysts. Synergism of plastic addition (like waste LDPE) on improving syngas quality and C₅-C₁₂ hydrocarbon yield will also be established and fine-tuned. The environmental and economic viability of the proposed project will be recognized using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Technoeconomic Assessment (TEA), respectively.