Research & development · technology
India throws away material that still holds energy — plastic that cannot be recycled, tyres nobody can dispose of, crop residue that gets burned, dung and organic waste that goes to a heap. Our research turns each of those into fuel. We have developed five conversion technologies, filed two patents, and built our own research centre to do it. This page sets out what we have, how far each process has actually got, and what the law calls it.
Why waste
One problem drains national wealth. The other fills our landfills. My Indifuels exists to connect them and these are the official figures behind that sentence, each with its source printed underneath.
Over 85%
of the crude oil India consumes is imported
In a single financial year the country's crude import bill has approached US$119 billion. Every litre made here from waste is a litre that did not have to be bought abroad.
Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC).
3.9 MT
of plastic waste a year, against roughly 0.94 MT of recycling capacity
Four times more plastic waste than the country can recycle. The difference is not a statistic to us — it is our feedstock.
Central Pollution Control Board, Annual Report on Plastic Waste Management 2022-23.
62 MMT
of municipal solid waste generated in India each year
The policy quoting this estimate says the waste "has a huge potential of producing drop-in fuels and generate power". That is the sentence our business was built to act on.
NITI Aayog Task Force on Waste to Energy, cited in the National Policy on Biofuels 2018, para 5.12.1.
20% & 5%
Indicative national blending target by 2030
20% ethanol in petrol and 5% biodiesel in diesel — the national direction of travel that waste-derived fuels sit alongside.
National Policy on Biofuels 2018, para 2.2.
₹19,744 cr
Initial outlay, National Green Hydrogen Mission
Including ₹17,490 crore for the SIGHT programme up to 2029-30 and ₹400 crore for research. Hydrogen from biomass is one of our patented processes.
Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, National Green Hydrogen Mission.
5
conversion technologies developed in-house
Different regions have different waste. Rather than force one technology onto every site, we developed five and select the one that fits the feedstock actually available in that catchment.
Our own records, held under our Corporate Management System.
Our facilities
Research done on somebody else's licence is somebody else's asset. Ours was developed in our own centre, by our own people, on Indian feedstock.
Gangai, 100 ft Old Kupwad Road, Sangli 416416. Our dedicated research and innovation centre, where both patented processes — waste plastic to fuel, and biomass to green hydrogen — were conceived, developed and matured from laboratory concept to working process.
Feedstock characterisation, process parameter work, yield studies and product formulation all happen here, and it is where our young scientists and engineers are trained.
Our production facility, where a process that worked in Sangli has to work at scale, day after day, on the waste that actually arrives at the gate.
The gap between a laboratory result and a plant running at capacity is where most waste-to-fuel ventures fail. Having both sites, in one company, is how we close it.
We stand behind the technology. The company takes full responsibility for the process it deploys, and enters a formal technology agreement with every plant partner. A partner is not buying a hope — they are buying a process with an owner.
Who does this work: our Research & Development and Technology department, led by a scientist with three decades in fuels science. See the department and who leads it →
Five conversion technologies
A sugar belt, a farming belt and a city do not produce the same waste. Forcing one technology onto every site is how plants end up idle. We select the process that matches the feedstock actually available in that catchment.
| Technology | Feedstock | Primary output |
|---|---|---|
|
Waste plastic to fuel Pyrolysis + distillation |
LDPE, HDPE, PP and PS. PVC and PET are excluded. | Renewable diesel, renewable petrol, light distillate, pyro-char |
|
Bio-diesel Transesterification |
Palm oil and palm fatty acid, soya and rice-bran fatty acid, animal tallow, used cooking oil | Bio-diesel (B100), glycerol |
|
Biomass pellets Densification |
Agricultural residue and biomass | Industrial boiler pellets, replacing coal and pet coke |
|
Bio-CNG / CBG Anaerobic digestion |
Municipal organic waste, press mud, cow dung, bakery waste, agricultural waste | Compressed bio-gas, plus bio-fertiliser |
|
Green hydrogen Pyrolysis + steam reforming |
Biomass, bio-methane, sugar-industry waste | Green hydrogen, plus carbon black |
Notice what is excluded. PVC and PET are kept out of the plastic feedstock deliberately. A process that will accept anything is a process that has not been thought about — chlorine and polyester chemistry damage a pyrolysis line and the product that comes out of it.
Notice the second outputs, too. Char, glycerol, bio-fertiliser and carbon black are not by-products to be disposed of. Each has a buyer, and each improves the case for a plant.
Where each technology stands
Most companies describe every project as though it were finished. We would rather show the ladder and where each process has climbed to. The stage is written in words on every row — it is not a colour you have to interpret.
Waste plastic to fuel
In commercial production
Patented process, running at our production facility. Fuel is supplied to authorised industrial users — see the product boundary below.
Waste tyre, rubber, medical waste and oil sludge to fuel
Developed
The same reactor line also processes tyres, rubber, medical waste and oil sludge — four of the hardest wastes in India to dispose of safely. Carbon black and steel are recovered from tyres alongside the oil.
Green hydrogen from biomass
Developed · patented process
Two-step pyrolysis and steam reforming of biomass — wood, straw, grass and sugar-industry waste — into hydrogen and syngas. Application filed.
Bio-CNG from residue, dung and organic waste
Developed
Anaerobic digestion with gas cleaning and compression, producing bio-fertiliser alongside the gas. The policy's own definition of bio-CNG names exactly these feedstocks.
Bio-diesel and biomass pellets
Developed
Bio-diesel by transesterification of waste and non-edible oils, and densified biomass pellets that replace coal and pet coke in industrial boilers — the simplest, fastest route to displacing a fossil fuel in a factory.
Lubricants, exhaust fluid and coolants
Developed
Formulation work on engine oils, diesel exhaust fluid for BS-VI vehicles and radiator coolants.
Sustainable aviation fuel from waste oil
Under development
Used cooking oil and waste oil as feedstock for aviation fuel. Not a commercial product today, and we will say so until it is.
What each stage means. Research — being studied. Lab proven — works at laboratory scale. Developed — the process is ready and proven in our own facilities. In production — running at a plant, at capacity, day after day. Certified for retail — lawfully certified for sale as an automotive-grade fuel at a forecourt.
A bar moves only when the evidence exists — a test report, a batch record, a commissioning certificate, a certification. Our own rules treat a stage recorded as reached, when it was not, as a disciplinary matter rather than a marketing decision.
The reference process
Non-condensable syngas is recycled as furnace fuel, so the plant burns its own output to run itself rather than buying energy in. Char is recovered separately and sold.
Typically 60–75% by weight of feedstock converts to oil. That number, not the headline capacity, is what decides whether a waste-to-fuel plant works.
Material is segregated, weighed and checked before it enters the process. Rubbish in, rubbish out — literally.
Every batch is tested against its specification in our laboratory, and released only on a passing result — never on a schedule.
Operating and test records are retained, so any quantity sold can be traced back to the batch that produced it.
Product boundary
Our industrial fuel output is sold to authorised industrial
actual users. It is not represented as automotive-grade diesel
or petrol unless lawfully certified as such.
My Indifuels — product boundary
Because the alternative is letting a customer assume something we have not proved. A fuel becomes automotive-grade when a certification says so — not when a website does. Until that certification exists for a given product, the fuel goes where it is lawfully sold: to authorised industrial users who need heat and power.
Testing, and certification against the applicable Indian standards. That is the last rung on the ladder above, and it is deliberately shown as not yet reached. When it is reached, this page will say so and name the certification.
This is the paragraph a serious buyer, lender or regulator looks for. A company that draws its own boundary before anyone asks is a company whose other claims are worth reading.
Policy framework
India's National Policy on Biofuels 2018 defines the categories our processes produce. We quote its own words, because the definitions are more useful to a serious reader than any claim we could make about them.
Drop-in fuels — the category our liquid fuels belong to:
Any liquid fuel produced from Biomass, agri-residues, wastes
such as Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW), Plastic wastes,
Industrial wastes etc. which meets the Indian standards for
MS, HSD and Jet fuel, in pure or blended form, for its
subsequent utilization in vehicles without any modifications
in the engine systems and can utilize existing petroleum
distribution system.
National Policy on Biofuels 2018, para 3.2(iv)
Advanced biofuels — the class that includes our gas and hydrogen work:
Fuels such as Second Generation (2G) Ethanol, Drop-in fuels,
algae based 3G biofuels, bio-CNG, bio-methanol, Di Methyl
Ether (DME) derived from bio-methanol, bio-hydrogen, drop in
fuels with MSW as the source / feedstock material will qualify
as "Advanced Biofuels".
National Policy on Biofuels 2018, para 3.2(iii)
Bio-CNG — and note the feedstocks the definition names:
Purified form of bio-Gas whose composition & energy
potential is similar to that of fossil based natural gas and
is produced from agricultural residues, animal dung, food
waste, MSW and Sewage water.
National Policy on Biofuels 2018, para 3.2(v)
Our fuels are produced from plastic waste, tyres, agricultural residue, dung and organic waste, and are engineered for use through the existing distribution system. That places them inside the policy's definitions of drop-in fuels and advanced biofuels — which is why the category exists at all.
The policy defines categories; it grants recognition to no company or product. So we do not say we are "recognised" under it. What matters is the condition inside the definition — that the fuel meets the applicable Indian standards — and that is a laboratory and certification question, answered batch by batch.
The policy envisages fiscal support for advanced biofuels —
tax credits, advance depreciation on plant expenditure,
differential pricing
and viability gap funding among them (paras 5.16–5.17). It
also records that these technologies are
in nascent stage and need to be proven on commercial
scale
. Proving them is the work.
Green hydrogen has its own national mission, with an initial outlay of ₹19,744 crore including ₹400 crore for research. Our interest is the biomass route — using what a farming state already has on the ground.
Intellectual property
Anybody can write "patented technology" on a website. A number is checkable — and a company that publishes one is telling you it expects to be checked.
| Application | Number | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
|
Waste plastic to renewable fuels Filed — confirm date |
202311060502 | The design and operation of the pyrolysis reactor — a horizontal cylindrical vessel with screw conveyor, heating, gas collection and char removal systems; the composition and properties of oil and gas produced from different plastic types; the methods and parameters for converting that oil into fuels; and the performance of the resulting fuels in diesel, gasoline and jet engines. |
|
Biomass and sugar waste to green hydrogen Filed — confirm date |
202311060503 | The two-step pyrolysis and steam-reforming conversion of biomass — wood, straw, grass — into green hydrogen; the design of the vertical cylindrical reactor with gasification chamber, reforming chamber, heating and gas separation systems; and the composition, yield drivers and applications of the hydrogen and syngas produced. |
Applications, not grants. These are patent applications on file. We will describe them that way until a patent office says otherwise — and we will publish the grant number when there is one.
Collaborate with us
Waste-to-fuel is not a field anyone advances alone. The national policy itself records that these technologies still need proving at commercial scale — and that is a shared problem.
Joint work on yields, catalysts, emissions characterisation and new feedstocks. We can offer real plant data and real material — usually what a laboratory lacks.
Waste-to-energy pilots at district level. If you have a waste stream and a disposal problem, we would rather study it with you than read about it.
Recurring industrial waste streams, tyre collections, used cooking oil aggregation, sugar-industry waste. Bring us a material and a volume and we will characterise it honestly.
If this problem is the one you want to spend your career on, write to us — whether or not a vacancy is listed.
Our standard of evidence
Waste-to-fuel is a field with a great deal of noise in it. Here is what we have decided not to do, so you can hold us to it.
An application is an application. We write "application filed" and we print the number.
Our industrial fuel is sold to authorised industrial users and is not represented as automotive-grade unless lawfully certified as such.
Every external figure on this page names the document it came from. If we cannot cite it, we do not print it.
"Developed" does not mean available, and we will not blur the two. The ladder tells you exactly where each process stands.
If you find something on this website we cannot evidence, tell us and we will correct it. Write to [email protected]. A company that asks to be checked is worth more than one that asks to be believed.
Sources