Sustainability, safety and reusability are key considerations alongside bringing a new product to market. Keeping this in view, there is a growing realization among the Indian chemical and petrochemical companies to implement highly focused R&D projects to create long-term sustainable solutions for domestic market and the world.

Experts are of the view that collaborative approach and big ticket investments by industry along with right policy framework only could help achieve the industry its sustainability goals.

 “When we talk about new sustainable materials, we must remember that there will be no crude oil by the year 2050. Therefore, we need to use biomass and its conversion can happen only through hydrogenation and oxidation. Hydrogen and oxygen can convert into water. Water splitting and green hydrogen are going to be important. Biomass of any kind including waste plastics can be converted into new chemicals and materials such as polymers or oligomers. We have to recycle everything in one form or another through recycle engineering. It can be physical or biological but mostly chemical reactions. Our new trinity will be solar, water and hydrogen. Hydrogen will play an important role and so will biomass conversion. Separation technologies will be important and so are the digital technologies such as AI,” said Prof. G.D. Yadav, Emeritus Professor of Eminence, Institute of Chemical Technology-Mumbai.

“A lot of work is being done at IITs and other top academic institutes. However, academics will publish the paper but shy away from development of technology. That’s not good for us as indigenous technology has to be developed and design has to be created. One of the missing links in academia and industry relations is that academia thinks industry can’t solve its problem. Another thing is that the industry wants to import the readymade technology and isn’t really interested in investing enough on research of new technologies or taking it to the next level. While in China academia is very much involved in development of technology and most of the patents come from academia, in India academia is hardly approached for scaling up of technology,” added Prof. Yadav. 

Prof Yadav was speaking along with other leading industry stakeholders on the need for development of new sustainable materials at the ‘NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals Summit 2022’ organized by Indian Chemical News on July 21, 2022. The panel discussion themed, ‘R& D-New Sustainable Materials for Chemicals & Petrochemicals Industry’ was moderated by Pravin Prashant, Editor, Indian Chemical News.

 “We commenced the R&D operations from 2016 onwards but we have come a long way. Till now we have 16 laboratories which we have installed in phase 1 and phase 2. We are putting emphasis on hydrogen, water and solar. Another segment we are looking at is Global Technology Development Centre, where whatever process units are at both our refineries and JVs, we want to have trouble shooting support at high level for our R&D centre.  This is what we are looking for as a futuristic support,” said S. Sriram, Chief General Manager-R& D, HP Green R& D Center.

 “Coming to what the green R& D centre is doing, we recently started the PetChem lab which is just 4 months old. We are looking at making the polycarbonates from biopolymers so that carcinogen based chemicals from fossils are avoided. For the pilot scale projects for 2G ethanol, we are using enzymes that are costly and now we are trying to make a better conversion model for lignins.  To follow the green hydrogen mission promoted by the government, we are setting up a 370 tonnes per annum pilot project of green hydrogen. It is under implementation at Vizag expected to go online by December 2022. We have an alkaline electrolyzer made by an Indian manufacturer. We are looking at setting up 85 megawatt of electric electrolyzers. First phase will be over by 2025 and another by 2030. We are in dialogue with partners. From a refinery perspective, we are looking for green hydrogen and subsequently the eco-friendly and sustainable chemicals. More focus has to the products with Go to the market strategy rather than commercialization,” added Sriram.

 Sustainability is time dependent, but self-sustainability is forever, believes Prof. R.K. Khandal, President-R&D & Business Development, India Glycols Limited. Prof Khandal explains: "When we say self-sustainability, the base material that comes to focus is the biomass. We have to take out chemicals from biomass of various types but without having any conflict with food because food versus fuel or food versus chemical will not be making it sustainable. In our last budget, the government of India has already made two announcements. One is focused on green hydrogen to manufacture urea and green hydrogen for all other processes where green hydrogen is used. The second is focused on biomass to replace coal in boilers. These steps will help us to achieve transformation in the chemical industry because biomass is going to be a big resource for us. Unless we capture Co2, only plan that is capturing Co2 into ethanol is China. We need to start capturing the Co2 in ethanol in India.”

“Government has provided incentives for distilleries to produce ethanol from molasses and grain. It must now provide even more incentives to produce ethanol from biomass.  We need to group together and start producing green ethylene. We have to bridge the gap between academia and industry, and bridge the gap between academic research and industrial research,” added Prof Khandal.

“Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword but a new way of doing business. We have to do this to survive in the next 150 years. Organizations are coming up with new R& D centres and companies are going for integration in a big way. That way we can have a better say with the government and at the policy level to accelerate the challenges we are facing at the R& D side,” said Bijal Mathkar, Research & Innovation Director, Solvay Research & Innovation Centre India.

“If we look at the UN goals, sustainability is going to be US$ 300 trillion industry. Challenging the status quo and taking steps to address the issues whether through biodegradability, bio-sourcing or recycling. The pie is big enough and there is a huge chunk for everybody. In order to prevent re-inventing the wheel, industry needs to come together from the R & D process, manufacturing side to save time and resources. Sustainable humanity is more important than only looking at sustainability from a business perspective. From the point of integration at the molecular level, we have gone from regular to circular economy. We don’t just take ownership of cradle to grave but cradle to cradle. Bring back what we have put into the system and then reuse it in a way. That’s where the real integration happens where you go to the raw material, supply chain and end user who gives it back and it keeps on moving,” added Mathkar.

“India has been importing and exporting a large amount of products. Here the quality and standard play an important role and it is expected that testing labs be accredited with ISO 17025:2017. Most of the labs during Covid went for accreditation with ISO. Proficiency testing plays an important role and prior to 2015, there were many issues such as the matrix of the product coming across, the test methods or validation not suited to Indian conditions besides cost factor. Also, the intra-lab comparisons may work as per the local norms whereas the international requirements of quality are different,’ said R. Subramanian, Deputy General Manager-Quality Assurance (Head), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Adding further, Subramanian mentioned: “In 2013, BPCL was approached by the government for proficiency testing and we became its first provider. We created a testing material suited for Indian conditions and ISO 17025. Accuracy of the instruments, monitoring of calibrations is done by us. There are 300 petroleum sector labs where we are trying to create reference labs. With ethanol and biodiesel coming up, we will require more reference material and testing labs. We are tying up with IIP Dehradun and ICT Hyderabad in this direction. We are trying to make an eco-friendly base material for the products.”

“The need for integration is not only at one specific level but across the businesses and create a long-term globally sustainable model. Integrating the needs of industry and academia is a must for innovative and cost effective global products,” said Dr Hiten Mehta, Head-R& D, Chlor Alkali, Aditya Birla Chemicals.

“We are looking at sustainability across all the segments that we are operating in. Our focus is to use and reuse the material that is being available in the environment. For Chlor Alkali, we use the raw material which is abundant in nature such as sodium chloride and then we forward integrate it into many other products. In my previous experience where I was working with the pharmaceutical industry, I learned that integration is a must. The reason for Indian companies going to China for raw material is because they manufacture in bulk and it is cost effective. However, I never heard pharma companies talking of coming together to innovate and manufacture molecules that serve as raw materials or work with academia and investors,” added Dr Mehta. 

The NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals Summit 2022 was supported by the leading names of the industry. The platinum partner was Elliot Group. Regulatory Knowledge Partner was GPC. Gold partners of the event included Ingenero, Premier Tech, Carbanio and Deepak Nitrite. Among the associate partners were PIP and Huntsman. The industry partners of the event included AMAI, Croplife India, and ACFI.