Code No: S065 Price: 1200 Category: Bioprocess & Bioproducts

Published in January, 2009

Executive Summary

Biotechnology has been identified India’s industry of the future. Due to its mega bio-diversity biotechnology offers good opportunities to convert Indian biological resources into economic wealth. In cognizance of the vast potential of biomass as feedstock for deriving liquid as well as gaseous fuels and value-added chemicals, the national level programme on Bioprocess & Bioproducts has been launched by TIFAC towards identification, development & demonstration of innovative bioconversion technologies in the country through collaborative actions among various stakeholders.

As precursor to launching its Bioprocess & Bioproducts Programme, TIFAC had commissioned preparation of comprehensive position papers in the thrust areas viz. Bio-ethanol, Bio-oil, Bio-Hydrogen, Bio-Chemicals/Specialty Chemicals and Industrial Enzymes by the domain experts inducted from the leading national R&D and academic institutions. The position papers have been instrumental in detailed sectoral assessment and formulation of future strategies for the areas identified. These position papers were updated and peer reviewed with a view to publishing them as TIFAC specialized reports.

Effective utilization of biomass for its conversion into energy and value-added products assumes priority for developing countries like India, due to the potential impact of the conversion technologies in terms of their environment friendliness and far reaching socio-economic consequences coupled with employment generation at the rural level. The technologically feasible alternatives to convert biomass into liquid & gaseous fuels, chemicals, biomaterials etc. need to be considered with adequate emphasis in Indian context. There exists a wide spectrum of technology development possibilities in this area. The process parameters, yields etc. with reference to Indian biomass need to be established for both the thermo-chemical as well as biotransformation processes to convert it into fuels & value added chemicals.