Biofuels Digest special report: Indian biofuels pioneer Praj Industries

By Biofuels Digest special correspondent Joelle Brink

A biofuels research colleague of mine once described Praj Industries as “the future.” Company chairman Pramod Chaudhari agrees, but likes to point out: “We at Praj do not go by predictions. We like to bring the changes and help shape the future ourselves.” So begins a special profile of Indian biofuels leader Praj Industries by Biofuels Digest correspondent Joelle Brink.

Founded in Pune in 1984 by Chaudhari and CEO Shashank Inamdar, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai, Praj is a global industrial biotech, process, and plant engineering solution provider to biofuel producers and refiners worldwide. It has joint ventures in Brazil (Praj Jaragua Bioenergia S.A.), Europe (BioCynergy Europa B.V. with Aker Solutions,), and a wholly owned subsidiary in the US, Praj Schneider. A Forbes “Best Under a Billion” company, Praj’s bottom line was up by 16 percent in 2008, a recessionary year for biofuels.

Praj began by providing process and plant engineering along with wastewater treatment solutions to the distillery and brewery industries, which are still an important part of its business. The company’s environmental convictions soon made wastewater treatment a research priority, leading to more effective engineering solutions, including a recently developed technology for converting wastewater particulates into energy.

As the company’s client base grew, Praj found itself working with a remarkably diverse array of ethanol and biodiesel feedstocks used by its global clients. Characteristically, Chaudhari, Inamdar and their colleagues looked on this as an extraordinary research opportunity and enlisted the help of their clients to map and analyze feedstocks worldwide by type, local variations, optimum mash characteristics and wastewater treatment requirements. “We are working with virtually all feedstocks,” said Chaudhari in an exclusive interview with Biofuels Digest. “This also gives us the ability to serve customers across geographies.”

Thus when ethanol began to emerge as a fuel, Praj was in an ideal position to participate in its development.

Biofuels Advocacy

Chaudhari, who also chairs the Confederation of Indian Industry’s National Biofuels Committee, is passionate about biofuels and renewable energy. “The future belongs to alternative energy,” he told investors at Praj’s 2008 general meeting. “Amongst all renewable energy areas, it is biofuels that has recorded the largest number of patents filed since 2002.”

He does not mince words when addressing the arguments of biofuels critics. “Food vs. Fuel is a defense mechanism that has been adopted by all those who ignored the criticality of investing in agricultural development over the years. It is also a wake up call. We should not get caught up in rhetoric but act prudently to balance the cycle of inflationary factors. Today, the single most important causal factor is not so much biofuels as rising energy costs—the energy used in agricultural equipment, processing of food and distribution of food. We need to rein in these costs and break the upward spiral of food prices.”

But he also cautions: “Biofuels have become the victim of their own popularity. Policy makers in each country need to ‘customize’ their choice of energy in a more systematic manner so as to provide the best options to their citizens. Biofuels have the potential to create ‘mass uniqueness’ through choice of feedstock.”

New Feedstocks

“Mass uniqueness” also characterizes the company’s approach to feedstocks. Praj has developed processing and a wastewater technology for tapioca/cassava/manioc, among others, introduced farm-fuel Jatropha biodiesel services, and has been working with sweet sorghum since 2002. The company recently completed the first sweet sorghum to ethanol plant in India for Tata Chemicals.

“We have done extensive work with sweet sorghum, a newly identified energy crop which we also call the bridge crop for ethanol production” Chaudhari told the Digest.  “In the area of biodiesel we are working with non-food crops like Jatropha as well as some non-edible varieties of safflower, in addition to first generation feedstocks like palm oil, soy and other oil seeds. For ethanol, we have carried out laboratory and now pilot scale developmental work on corn cob and bagasse.”

Second Generation Biofuels

Last month Praj made a breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol at its Praj Matrix R&D unit, where it successfully demonstrated production of ethanol from corn cobs and sugarcane bagasse under varying operating conditions. This followed proven bench scale process development for which Praj had already filed patents. Further work will involve scaling up to a commercial level demonstration plant, which the company plans to add onto an existing conventional distillery where feedstock wastes are readily available. “We are already in discussions with a few distilleries,” said Shashank Inamdar, CEO and Managing Director of the company, “and we have received encouraging responses from them.”

The work on cellulosic ethanol took place at the new Praj Matrix laboratory complex commissioned in April 2008 with the objective of promoting basic research on non-food biofuels and industrial biotech processes. It employs 75 scientists and engineers specializing in microbiology, biochemistry, biotechnology, and non-food bio-agricultural products such as hybrid grasses for bioethanol production and algae for biodiesel. “We are also exploring algae based biodiesel technologies” Chaudhari told Biofuels Digest. He added that Praj is also working on “green gasoline” and “green diesel”.

Environment and Sustainability

“In line with our business of reducing GHG emissions through our technologies and equipment,” says Chaudhari, “we are also working towards a ‘green city/green citizen’ campaign. This is in co-operation with our Corporate Social Responsibility arm, the Praj Foundation. The foundation’s main focus is on the environment, and on education (where again the theme of environment is involved).” Praj Foundation also works to increase educational and employment opportunities for girls and boys from poor and otherwise marginalized families, and supports an intensive “finishing school” that ensures that secondary school graduates from poor families have the personal and learning skills to compete successfully.

“In order to get citizens to work towards sustainability goals, it is important to create awareness,” says Chaudhari. “We work with school children and through citizen committees for this. Also, we have adopted a massive tree plantation drive to maintain the ecosystem near our office, which involves ecosystem restoration to protect water bodies and preserve wildlife.

“Other than that, river restoration and many other projects are on the anvil.

“Within the company we have undertaken a drive to create green goals for our employees, which involves their entire family – reducing electricity consumption, transport vehicle emissions, and reducing energy consumption on the office premises. These are just some of the moves. Employees are given an incentive to undertake green projects. This is also in line with our triple bottom-line approach.” (Business/ Society/Environment).

The Future

It is probably no accident that Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla is an influential investor in Praj Industries. Both companies grew out of top technical universities, fueled mostly by challenge and enthusiasm rather than investments and revenues. Both continued to go their own way despite becoming very profitable. Praj’s IPO was oversubscribed seven times.

“I believe Praj has thrived mainly due to its innovative approach to finding solutions that add value to our customers’ business,” says Chaudhari. “Another reason is the high level of commitment to the biofuels industry that has seen us investing in infrastructure, including the recently inaugurated pilot facility for advanced biofuels. Ups and downs are part of the industrial cycle. The ability to work in participation with industries and to deliver cutting edge solutions is what makes us a leading company.

“As a company, Praj is poised at an interesting juncture in its big leap towards the future. We are following different models, working with various agencies, companies and institutions in order to get to the solution fastest. In this new space, there are no competitors. Everyone is creating their own advantages and there can be many unique solutions to the same issues. This makes the entire space more interesting.”

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