Last updated : August 05, 2026 11:02 am
Customers are looking for technologies with a strong operating track record that reduce project risk, simplify integration, and provide confidence to move towards final investment decisions.
Alberto Giovanzana, CEO, Johnson Matthey Catalyst Technologies spoke to Pravin Prashant, Executive Editor, Indian Chemical News on company's vision, technology priorities, positioning for the next decade, India's importance on global growth, R&D investment, and India expansion plans. Excerpts of the interview:
What is Johnson Mathey's vision in accelerating energy transition and company's technology priorities under your leadership?
The energy transition is entering a new phase. For many years, the industry focused on proving that low-carbon technologies could work. Today, the priority is deploying those technologies at an industrial scale in ways that are commercially viable, reliable, and capable of delivering meaningful emissions reductions and that is where Johnson Matthey is focused. Our role is to help customers accelerate transition by combining world-leading catalysts, process technologies, and engineering expertise into integrated solutions that reduce project risk and improve economics.
Our technology priorities reflect where we believe we can make the greatest impact. Sustainable aviation fuel, low-carbon hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, and carbon capture all have important roles to play in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors. Rather than viewing these as competing technologies, we see them as complementary pathways that will develop at different rates depending on regional resources, infrastructure, and market demand.
We are placing greater emphasis on helping customers move from feasibility to operation. That means focusing not only on innovation, but also on scalability, feedstock flexibility, operational reliability, and strong partnerships across the value chain. Ultimately, success will be measured by operating projects that deliver value for customers while contributing to a lower-carbon, more resilient and more competitive industrial future.
What are customers demanding from next-generation fuels and chemicals technologies and how is Johnson Mathey preparing for it?
Customer expectations have changed significantly. A few years ago, much of the discussion centred on reducing emissions. Today, customers are looking for solutions that achieve that while strengthening energy security, improving resilience, and delivering competitive returns on investment. They are also becoming much more selective about where they invest. Capital is constrained, so projects need to be technically proven, economically robust, and capable of reaching operation on schedule. Customers are looking for technologies with a strong operating track record that reduce project risk, simplify integration, and provide confidence to move towards final investment decisions. Another clear trend is the growing importance of flexibility. Whether they are investing in hydrogen, methanol or sustainable aviation fuel, customers want technologies that can adapt to changing feedstocks, market conditions and regulatory requirements over the lifetime of an asset.
At Johnson Matthey, we are responding by combining our catalyst expertise with process technologies, engineering capabilities, and strategic partnerships to deliver integrated solutions that address those priorities. Initiatives such as SAF Technology Alliance demonstrate how collaboration can simplify project delivery and help accelerate commercial deployment.
Ultimately, customers are not simply investing in technology. They are investing in confidence that projects will perform reliably over decades of operation. Our role is to provide the technologies, expertise, and support that help turn that confidence into successful operating assets.
Johnson Matthey has evolved from a traditional catalyst company into a provider of technologies. How is the company positioning itself for the next decade of growth, particularly in emerging markets like India?
Catalysts remain at the heart of Johnson Matthey but our customers' challenges have become much broader. They are developing complex projects that require expertise across the entire value chain, from catalyst performance and process technology through to engineering, licensing and long-term operational support.
That is why our business has evolved. Today, we combine world-leading catalyst science with proprietary process technologies and engineering capabilities to help customers optimise the performance of complete production systems rather than individual process steps. This enables us to support projects from the earliest stages of development through to commercial operation.
Emerging markets such as India are central to that strategy. India has ambitious plans for refining, chemicals, fertilisers, sustainable fuels and hydrogen, supported by strong industrial growth, expanding renewable energy capacity and a clear commitment to advanced manufacturing. These industries are looking not only to expand capacity, but also to improve efficiency, reduce emissions, and remain globally competitive. We see significant opportunities to work with Indian companies as they modernise existing assets and invest in next generation of low-carbon technologies.
Looking ahead, our ambition is to be more than a technology supplier. We want to be a long-term partner, helping customers navigate the energy transition by delivering solutions that improve performance today while creating the flexibility to meet tomorrow's opportunities.
How important is India in Johnson Matthey's global growth strategy? With India's focus on chemicals, refining, sustainable fuels, and green hydrogen, where do you see the biggest opportunities for catalyst innovation?
India is one of the world's most dynamic industrial markets and an important part of Johnson Matthey's long-term growth strategy. The country's focus on strengthening domestic manufacturing through initiatives such as Make in India, alongside ambitious plans for hydrogen, sustainable fuels and advanced manufacturing, is creating an attractive environment for industrial investment and technology deployment.
What makes India particularly exciting is the breadth of those opportunities. The country is not pursuing a single decarbonisation pathway. It is investing across multiple sectors, from improving the efficiency of existing refining and chemicals assets to developing new low-carbon value chains based on renewable hydrogen and sustainable fuels. Catalyst innovation will play a central role throughout that transition. In refining and chemicals, advanced catalysts can improve productivity, increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. In hydrogen and ammonia production, they can help optimise process performance while supporting lower-carbon production routes. In sustainable aviation fuel, technologies that can process a wide range of feedstocks, including municipal solid waste, agricultural residues and renewable hydrogen, have the potential to support the development of a resilient domestic SAF industry.
I believe India's combination of industrial capability, engineering talent, policy ambition, and commitment to the energy transition will make it one of the most influential markets shaping the future of catalyst and process technologies.
The company leads in hydrogen technologies, including catalysts for hydrogen production and fuel cells. How do you assess India's progress in building a hydrogen economy and where can JM technologies create greatest impact?
India is one of the world's most dynamic industrial markets and an important part of Johnson Matthey's long-term growth strategy. The scale of its refining, chemicals, and fertiliser industries, combined with ambitious plans for hydrogen, sustainable fuels, and advanced manufacturing, creates significant opportunities for technology deployment over the coming decades.
What makes India particularly exciting is the breadth of those opportunities. The country is not pursuing a single decarbonisation pathway. It is investing across multiple sectors, from optimising performance of existing industrial assets to developing new low-carbon value chains based on renewable hydrogen and sustainable fuels.
Catalyst innovation will play a central role throughout that transition. In refining and chemicals, advanced catalysts can improve productivity, increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. In hydrogen and ammonia production, they can help optimise process performance while supporting lower-carbon production routes. In sustainable aviation fuel, technologies that can process a wide range of feedstocks, including municipal solid waste, agricultural residues and renewable hydrogen, have the potential to support the development of a resilient domestic SAF industry.
India's refining, fertilizer, and steel sectors are expected to become early adopters of low-carbon hydrogen. Are you already engaging with Indian companies in these sectors and what opportunities do you see?
We have longstanding relationships with customers across India's refining, fertiliser, and chemicals industries, and we are actively supporting discussions around how low-carbon technologies can be integrated into existing operations and future investments. While every company is at a different stage of its decarbonisation journey, there is a clear appetite to understand which technologies can deliver meaningful emissions reductions while remaining commercially competitive. One of the encouraging trends is that customers are taking a pragmatic approach. Rather than looking for a single solution, they are evaluating a combination of technologies that can be introduced over time, balancing immediate efficiency improvements with longer-term investments in low-carbon hydrogen and sustainable fuels.
We see significant opportunities across several sectors. In refining, hydrogen will continue to play a critical role in producing cleaner fuels while maximising resource utilisation. In the fertiliser industry, low-carbon hydrogen has the potential to reduce the carbon intensity of ammonia production while supporting future demand for lower-carbon products. Steel is also an important opportunity, although the pace and route to adoption will vary depending on technology choices and regional infrastructure.
Beyond hydrogen production itself, catalyst innovation has an important role in helping customers improve the performance of existing assets, increase feedstock flexibility and optimise process efficiency. Many companies are looking for technologies that deliver measurable benefits today while creating a pathway towards deeper decarbonisation over time.
How do projects such as Phelan Green signal a shift towards commercial-scale eSAF deployment? What role do you see catalysts playing in commercialization of SAF, green hydrogen, and carbon capture technologies?
Projects such as Phelan Green are important because they demonstrate that the industry is moving beyond pilot projects towards commercial-scale deployment. The significance is not simply the size of the project. It is the integration of proven technologies across renewable hydrogen, carbon utilisation and sustainable fuel production to create a commercially credible pathway for eSAF.
Catalysts play a critical role throughout that value chain. They improve efficiency, increase selectivity, optimise carbon utilisation and help maximise the value derived from renewable feedstocks. Combined with advanced process technologies, they enable producers to improve both operational performance and project economics. Looking more broadly, the same principles apply across sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen and carbon capture. Success will depend on integrating complementary technologies, improving feedstock flexibility and reducing the cost and complexity of deployment.
The technologies required to support the transition already exist. The challenge now is scaling them through investment, partnerships, and industrial execution. Projects such as Phelan Green demonstrate what that next phase of the energy transition can look like and provide confidence for future commercial developments.
India is also preparing its SAF roadmap. How mature is the technology and what role can Johnson Matthey play in helping Indian refineries and airlines accelerate adoption?
Sustainable aviation fuel has moved beyond the demonstration phase. Several production pathways have now been approved for commercial use, and ndustry's focus has shifted from proving the technology to scaling production and building resilient supply chains.
India is well positioned to play an important role in that next stage of development. The country has a growing aviation market, a strong refining sector and access to a diverse range of potential feedstocks, including municipal solid waste, agricultural residues and, over time, renewable hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide. That diversity provides flexibility to develop multiple SAF pathways based on regional resources and market needs, rather than relying on a single solution.
Johnson Matthey can support that transition through complementary technologies. Our FT CANS technology provides a scalable Fischer-Tropsch route to producing SAF from a wide range of sustainable feedstocks, while our HyCOgen technology enables renewable hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide to be converted into syngas for eSAF production. Together, these technologies broaden feedstock options while improving carbon utilisation and creating a pathway towards commercial-scale eSAF production.
However, technology alone will not determine success. Scaling SAF in India will depend on continued collaboration between technology providers, refiners, airlines and policymakers to build the investment confidence, supply chains and production capacity needed to meet future demand.
I believe India has all the ingredients to become an important producer of sustainable aviation fuel. The opportunity now is to bring those strengths together through the right partnerships and long-term investment.
Catalyst innovation often takes years before commercialization. How does Johnson Matthey decide where to invest its R&D resources, particularly in rapidly evolving sectors like clean energy?
Innovation has always been central to Johnson Matthey but we are disciplined about where we invest. Our starting point is understanding the challenges our customers are trying to solve. We focus our R&D on areas where catalyst innovation can deliver measurable improvements in productivity, emissions reduction, feedstock flexibility or project economics, and where we believe there is a credible pathway to commercial deployment.
We also look carefully at long-term market trends. Sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, and carbon capture all address significant industrial opportunities where demand is expected to grow over many years. At the same time, we continue to invest in technologies that improve existing industrial processes because customers are looking to reduce emissions from assets that will continue operating for decades.
Equally important is the ability to integrate catalyst innovation with process engineering expertise. The greatest value often comes not from a single breakthrough catalyst, but from optimising the performance of the entire process. Ultimately, our objective is to invest in technologies that solve real industrial challenges and can be deployed commercially at scale.
What are the most exciting catalyst innovations currently emerging from Johnson Matthey's pipeline? Are there plans to expand Johnson Matthey's manufacturing, R&D, or technology partnerships in India?.
One of the most exciting developments is how catalyst innovation is improving the performance of entire industrial processes rather than individual process steps.
A good example is our NiVARA reforming catalyst. The NiVARA reforming catalyst represents a new generation of steam reforming catalysts designed to optimise the way nickel, the active catalytic material, is utilised within the catalyst. By making more effective use of this critical raw material, the NiVARA reforming catalyst helps customers improve operating efficiency, reduce catalyst costs and lower the carbon footprint associated with catalyst manufacture, while maintaining the high levels of reliability required for large-scale hydrogen, ammonia and methanol production. It also enables producers to improve the performance of existing assets without major process modifications.
Our CATACEL structured catalyst technology takes a different but equally innovative approach. Rather than relying on conventional packed catalyst beds, the CATACEL structured catalyst technology uses a precision-engineered structured architecture that improves heat and mass transfer, increases reformer efficiency and supports higher hydrogen production with lower energy consumption. Together, the NiVARA reforming catalyst and CATACEL structured catalyst technology demonstrate how catalyst innovation continues to evolve, not only through chemistry but through reactor and process design.
More broadly, these innovations reflect the direction of our industry. Customers are looking for technologies that improve productivity, reduce operating costs, increase resource efficiency and lower emissions at the same time. That is where we believe catalyst innovation can deliver the greatest value.
India is an important market for Johnson Matthey, and we have invested in engineering, manufacturing, and technical capabilities in the country over many years. As India's refining, chemicals and hydrogen sectors continue to grow, we will continue strengthening technology partnerships and local capabilities to help customers deploy proven technologies that improve competitiveness while supporting the transition to lower-carbon industrial production.
Many of your customers are making multi-billion-dollar investments in energy transition projects. Are you seeing stronger demand coming from Asia than from Europe, and where does India fit into your global order pipeline?
Demand remains strong across both regions, although it is driven by different priorities. Europe has been an important driver of investment through policy support, decarbonisation targets, and sustainable fuel mandates. Asia, meanwhile, continues to benefit from strong industrial growth, rising energy demand and major investment in manufacturing, refining and chemicals, alongside ambitious low-carbon strategies.
Rather than viewing this as a competition between regions, I think it reflects the fact that the energy transition will develop differently around the world. Every market has its own resource base, industrial strengths and policy environment.
India is particularly significant because it combines a rapidly growing economy with expanding refining, chemicals and manufacturing sectors, ambitious renewable energy targets, and increasing investment in hydrogen and sustainable fuels. These factors create long-term opportunities for catalyst and process technologies across multiple industries.
Our customers are looking for proven technologies that reduce risk, improve operational performance and support long-term competitiveness. Those requirements are consistent across both Europe and Asia.
How are your customers balancing sustainability goals with the need for operational efficiency and profitability? How is Johnson Matthey helping them improve feedstock flexibility and process economics?
Our customers no longer see sustainability and profitability as competing objectives. They recognise that the most successful projects are those that reduce emissions while also improving operational performance, making more efficient use of resources and strengthening long-term competitiveness.
The conversations we have today are much more commercially focused than they were a few years ago. Customers want to understand how new technologies will affect operating costs, asset reliability, energy efficiency and return on investment, alongside their environmental benefits. They are looking for solutions that deliver measurable business value from day one while providing a pathway to deeper decarbonisation over time.
Feedstock flexibility is an important part of that equation. Markets, regulations, and raw material availability continue to evolve, so technologies that can process a wider range of feedstocks help customers reduce supply risk, improve resilience and protect long-term investment.
This is where catalyst and process innovation can make a significant difference. Advances in catalyst design can improve conversion, increase selectivity, extend catalyst life, and reduce energy consumption, while process technologies help customers maximise the value of available feedstocks and optimise overall plant performance.
Ultimately, our role is to help customers make better use of the assets they already have while giving them the flexibility to adapt as markets and technologies continue to evolve. That combination of operational performance, commercial resilience, and sustainability is increasingly what defines a successful project.
How are digitalization, AI, and advanced process analytics influencing catalyst development and performance optimization? How is Johnson Matthey integrating sustainability into its own manufacturing and technology development processes?
Digital technologies are becoming increasingly valuable across the entire innovation cycle. Advanced modelling, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) allow us to accelerate catalyst development, improve process understanding and optimise performance more efficiently than ever before. These tools also help customers monitor plant performance, identify optimisation opportunities and improve operational reliability throughout the lifecycle of their assets. However, digital technologies are most powerful when combined with deep expertise in catalysis and process engineering. Data alone does not solve industrial challenges. The value comes from applying those insights to improve catalyst performance and optimise complex industrial systems.
Sustainability is embedded within our technology development. Our objective is to develop catalysts and process technologies that help customers reduce emissions, reduce energy consumption, maximise feedstock utilisation and extend catalyst life. These improvements contribute to both lower environmental impact and stronger commercial performance.
Which product categories do you expect to be the biggest revenue contributors over the next five years? What revenue opportunities does the Indian market present for catalyst technologies over the next decade?
Our established businesses in hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, and refining will continue to be extremely important over the next five years. These industries are investing to improve efficiency, increase capacity, and reduce emissions, creating sustained demand for high-performance catalysts and process technologies.
At the same time, we expect continued growth in emerging areas such as sustainable aviation fuel and other low-carbon technologies as more projects move from development into commercial operation. The pace of adoption will vary by region, but the long-term direction is clear as governments and industry work towards lower-carbon energy systems. India represents one of the most exciting long-term opportunities because of the scale of its industrial ambitions. Investment in refining, chemicals, fertilisers, hydrogen, and sustainable fuels is creating demand for technologies that improve productivity, optimise energy use and reduce carbon intensity across both existing and new production assets.
More broadly, I believe the greatest opportunities will come from helping customers improve performance of their operations. Technologies that increase throughput, extend catalyst life, reduce operating costs and make better use of valuable raw materials will continue to be attractive because they deliver measurable commercial benefits alongside sustainability improvements. That is an area where Johnson Matthey has built its reputation over many decades, and one where we believe we can continue to support industrial growth in India for many years to come.