Indian researchers develop technology to reduce cellulosic ethanol production

In India, researchers at the P.K. Sinha Centre for Bioenergy at IIT— Kharagpur have developed a patent-pending “soil-to-soil” manufacturing technology for cellulosic biofuel production that is meant to be faster and reduce costs by using enzymes instead of chemical pre-treatment processes. Researchers say the process is pollution-free with only organic fertilizer from residual biomass as a byproduct. The technology could help the country scale up second-generation ethanol in its efforts to blend more than 20% ethanol in the next few years.