enfinity®
Project Development Advisory
Along the entire value chain of your biorefinery project we offer you various professional consulting services to build a robust business case and maximize the internal rate of return of your investment.
Our professional advisory services range from tailored feasibility studies and feedstock qualifications to robust Capex and Opex estimations to make a sustainable development certain.
ARCH – Asset Retrofitting & Co-location Hub
Our dedicated multi-disciplinary engineering teams will exploit all possible value from retrofitting your existing assets when the advanced biorefinery is located within or co-located with your existing industrial facility.
We share our extensive retrofitting experience from 25 successful, large-scale bioethanol revamping projects and leverage this expertise for brownfield projects on/besides oil refineries and pulp & paper sites to provide optimized solutions.
Modularization & equipment supply
We deliver advanced biorefineries modularized compared to the typical onsite construction executed in the industry. The modularization approach offers a superior impact on the reduction of Capex as well as on total project time.
Through our business line CPES – Critical Process Equipment and Skids we deliver the plant in transportable premanufactured modules (incl. large loose equipment/items) which are manufactured in our own 4 equipment production facilities.
Till date, we have supplied 1500+ equipment and 300+ skids in 20 countries.
Expertise in Enzyme Optimization & Production
Praj has developed extensive know-how in enzymology and in the production process of sterile products in the biotech and biopharma industry inclusive of enzymes. The expertise consists of:
- Comprehensive research and development in enzyme optimization in our R & D center Matrix.
- Praj HiPurity’s engineering, and turnkey solutions for sterile biotech production plants.
- Praj HiPurity’s manufacturing of critical biotech and pharmaceutical process equipment such as microbial fermenters, smart bioreactors, sterile process piping, bio kill tanks, and inactivation systems, etc.
Our research and development team combines leading biologists and chemists from analytical science, scale-up to bioprocess engineering.
Best-in-Class Advanced Bioethanol Technology based on Agricultural Residues
enfinity® is Praj Industries’ proprietary, proven technology to responsibly produce sustainable, carbon-neutral advanced bioethanol and high-valuable co-products. enfinity® brings infinite possibilities for project configurations. The proprietary technology is highly feedstock flexible using cellulosic biomass from:
- Agricultural residues: wheat straws & rice straws, corn stover, bagasse, etc.
- Energy crops: miscanthus, elephant grass, etc.
- Hardwoods: Beech, Oak, Birch, etc.
With extensive biofuel industry experience, our multi-expertise R&D and engineering teams upgraded our proven 1G production technology to create the fully integrated advanced bioethanol technology enfinity®.
enfinity® Pre-treatment
enfinity® is characterized by an industry-leading material handling and pre-treatment system. It is born out of Praj’s treatment solutions for complex 1G feedstocks like Cassava, which have similar characteristics such as cellulosic feedstocks, for example significant impurities of mud and sand as well as a comparable crystalline fibrous structure. Looking at the complete production process of advanced bioethanol, the upfront pretreatment is the key to determining the efficiency of the subsequent process steps especially of the enzymatic hydrolysis. In our 3 commercialized advanced biorefineries, we have realized enfinity® pretreatment system with cutting-edge efficiency, plant availability, lowest maintenance, and enzyme use cost.
Our Journey to the Multiple Commercial Scale Advanced Bioethanol Plants of enfinity®
We have been chasing our dream of sustainable and economical advanced bioethanol production for over two decades.
In 2009, our cellulosic pilot plant started operations in our R&D center Matrix. This facility has tested more than 450 MT of biomass such as straws from wheat & rice, corn stover, bagasse, etc from all continents.
In 2017, the demonstration facility for Praj Industries was inaugurated by India's Cabinet Minister of Road Transport, Highways & Shipping and is currently exporting its advanced bioethanol to the adjacent 1G bioethanol and sugar factory. This pre-commercial plant has proven high performance regarding robustness, high yield of operations, cost-effectiveness, and predictability of scale-up.
In 2022, India’s Prime Minister inaugurated the 1st enfinity® commercial-scale plant in Panipat – Haryana, licensed to the IOCL. The plant, co-located to India’s largest oil refinery, converts 128KMT per year of sustainably sourced, rice straw into 24 ktpy of advanced bioethanol. The industrial facility creates 1500 indirect and 200 direct employments and CO2 reductions of 320 ktpy, which equals taking 63K cars off the roads.
enfinity® Process
Pre-Treatment
A specially designed pre-treatment method that produces a high glucose yield, while at the same time generates a low level of inhibitors that are toxic to enzymes and fermenting microbes.
Enzymatic Hydrolysis
It involves cleaving the polymers of cellulose and hemicellulose into sugar monomers using a customized cellulytic enzyme.
Ethanol Fermentation
It is the anaerobic pathway carried out by yeasts where sugars are converted into ethanol and by-products. Optimized yeasts convert both C5 and C6 sugars thus giving higher yields of ethanol.
Product Purification
Various innovative processes and technologies are developed and utilized that reduce energy requirements and provide self-sufficient energy operations.