WHY IN THE NEWS?

• India’s first indigenously Designed High Ash Coal Gasification Based Methanol Production Plant at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) Research and Development Centre, Hyderabad was inaugurated.
• The project was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, which provided a Rs 10 crore grant, at the initiative of NITI Aayog, PMO-India and the Ministry of Coal.
• The facility can create 0.25 ton per day (TPD) Methanol from high ash Indian coal using a 1.2 TPD Fluidized bed gasifier.
• The purity of the crude methanol produced is between 98 and 99.5 per cent.