Licella and Unnmukt Urja sign MOU to explore rice straw residues to biofuel opportunity in India

In Australia, Licella Holdings signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work with Indian based company Unnmukt Urja Private Limited, to explore the opportunity for utilising Licella’s innovative Cat-HTR (‘Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor’) technology as a more sustainable and higher value solution for rice straw residues in India.

India generates approximately 683 million tons of dry agricultural biomass every year.  Biomass residues generated from rice crops account for approximately 178 million tons of this. The current practice to deal with rice straw residues (the waste biomass left behind after harvesting) is to burn it. Widespread agricultural burning is a huge issue of air pollution in India and leads to some of India’s major cities having the lowest air quality in the world.  Every year around 15-20 million tonnes of crop stubble (mainly rice straw) is burnt in Punjab and Haryana. During the peak crop burning season in Punjab, the air pollution in Delhi is 20 times higher than the threshold for safe air as defined by the World Health Organization.

The partnership between Licella and Unnmukt Urja aligns to the Indian Government’s strong focus on biofuels and more sustainable alternatives to deal with biomass waste and agricultural residues. Biofuel from biomass has been recognised as an advanced biofuel in India’s Biofuel Policy 2018.