Prosperity from non-edible fruit
High tech and development assistance go hand in hand

India’s economy is growing at a meteoric pace. Oil prices are rising and the demand for fuels is increasing steadily. India currently imports about 70% of its crude oil needs, at a cost to the country of more than 25 billion dollars. In the medium term India must reduce its reliance on fossil fuel imports to ensure that its economic growth is based on a secure energy supply. Biodiesel and other CO2-neutral alternatives are produced from renewable sources and do not contribute to climate change. The cultivation of the raw materials provides work and income for numerous poor farmers, adding to the appeal of these alternatives.
Against this background, a public-private partnership (PPP) between Lurgi AG, Southern Online Bio Technologies Ltd. (SBT) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ – German Technical Cooperation) has constructed a biodiesel production plant in Andhra Pradesh, in south-central India.

The plant, a pilot project, has an annual production capacity of 10,000 tonnes of biodiesel. Although minimal in comparison with European facilities, this is an important first step for the Indian market.

As Dr Horst Kalfa, Managing Director of Lurgi in India, explains: “Before we entered the market biodiesel was a talking point in India, but nobody had actually built a production plant. Our local licensee for small-scale biodiesel systems has constructed the facility and we are now in negotiations with Indian customers for the construction of facilities with capacities up to 250,000 tonnes a year.”

A way out of poverty

Each of the PPP project partners brings its own particular expertise to the scheme — Lurgi its competency in plant engineering and construction, GTZ its experience
in capacity development, and SBT its knowledge of plant operation. These different strengths, at first glance so disparate, harmonise perfectly with each other in
the case of Andhra Pradesh. A biodiesel plant needs raw materials for its operation, and this is where GTZ comes in. Working together with small farmers, it develops sustainable production methods, and provides training in these methods for farmers within a radius of about 50 kilometres
of the plant. Armed with this knowledge, the farmers then plant oil fruits on degraded, unused tracts of land. Exotic-sounding plants such as Jatropha (bush) and
Pongamia (tree) now cover formerly
absolute desolate areas. The plants bear fruit which is unfit for human or animal
consumption, but which contains large amounts of inedible tree borne oil.
The shrubs of course cannot thrive without due care. To manage the plantations successfully and produce satisfactory yields, considerable knowledge is required: which areas are suitable for the shrubs, how
should they be watered, cultivated,
fertilised? When can the farmers expect to reap the benefit of their labour? GTZ, together with the international crop research institute Incrisat, addresses these and similar questions, and develops solutions.
Success has not been long in coming:
“Already 80 families are tending the land. An Indian farmer needs to cultivate only two hectares effectively with jatropha, in order to lift his family’s income above the official Indian poverty line,” explains
Michael Glück, a GTZ expert in India. GTZ not only demonstrates efficient methods of cultivation to the farmers, but also guides young people towards occupational independence. Young entrepreneurs operate oil mills, in order to extend the value chain beyond the harvesting of the oil fruit. Finally, farmers and oil mill owners are trained to negotiate fair fruit prices with the plant operators.

The plant concept

Lurgi’s Indian partner, Chemical Construction International (CCI), constructed the plant in Andhra Pradesh from the detail engineering stage through to its start-up in autumn last year. The plant is structured on a modular concept. A pre-treatment phase prepares the feed for the esterification process, the actual extraction of biodiesel. This pre-treatment is of special significance. It allows the plant operator to utilise different feedstocks, from fish oil or palm oil to jatropha and pongamia oil. This flexibility is of enormous benefit to the operation, because if a poor harvest causes a source of raw materials to fail, SBT can simply convert production to an alternative source material.The pre-treatment phase produces a feed with defined characteristics, regardless of the source material available. After pre-treatment, the feed enters the main phase where, in the presence of methanol and a catalyst, it is converted into biodiesel. A subsequent wash column removes glycerol and water from the product, expelling the diesel at the front end. A reverse flow of water enters the front of the column, washing the glycerol and excess methanol out of the product stream. A further column recovers the methanol from the water-glycerol mixture, returning it to the transesterification phase for re-use. Subsequent evaporation in another plant module purifies the crude glycerol for use in the pharmaceutical industry. The purified water re-enters the wash column. The circuit is complete. Regardless of their dimensions and production capacity, biodiesel plants all have the same modular structure. Kalfa affirms: “Thanks to our reference plant it is simple to upscale. This convinces our customers.”rzp