Chennai

Sources at IIT said that this will be a major boost to tackle ‘stubble burning,’ which causes soil erosion, kills beneficial soil organisms and emits harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and methane along with particulate matter.

Punjab and Haryana alone produce 30 million tonnes of paddy straw per year, which is not fit for cattle feed, and are being burnt in the fields. But the same straw has the useful heating value of around 3,200 to 3,500 K Cal/kg, which is closer to the coal used for power generation in thermal power plants.

Sukhbir Agro Energy Ltd (SAEL), which operates two biomass-based power plants and has gained sufficient experience in collection, transportation and storage of paddy straw, is in the process of commissioning paddy straw-based power plants in those two States.

Based on this, SAEL and National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD) at IIT Madras are set to collaborate for conducting Research and Developmental activities.

This would require certain facilities to be constructed at IIT, Madras to closely look into the combustion of paddy straw, with funding from SAEL.

The results would be put to test for further development in a boiler environment with a facility created, as suggested by IIT-M, at one of the power plants of SAEL.

The faculties of IIT-Madras and NCCRD, as part of this consortium, will provide the expertise to create the facility and carry out the core research.

Highlighting the targeted outcomes of this collaboration, Pro Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy, professor in-charge, NCCRD, said while IIT-Madras will meet the technical requirements such as design of prototype boiler, conducting trials and providing solution to the existing boilers and providing criteria for the design of new power plant boilers, the whole project will be funded by SAEL.

He said further SAEL’s technical team will provide technical data from the operating boilers, conduct trials on the prototype boiler as directed by IIT-M to achieve the objectives”.

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