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BIOFUELS & ALTERNATE ENERGY
CRDC is where nascent ideas germinate and flourish into full-fledged innovations. This “Citadel of Innovation” is where the ceaseless quest for excellence enables us to be at the forefront of science and technology for development of cleaner fuels, superlative petroleum products, class-leading industry-specific solutions, and furtherance of sustainable energy.
CRDC has three laboratory blocks housing several niche laboratories, one process scale-up laboratory and various utility blocks. Apart from deriving electrical power from an external power utility company, CRDC has a grid connected 1.05 MW solar power plant for captive electricity generation, which powers CRDC during office hours.
The existing built up area of 15,690 square meters of the CRDC complex, consisting of laboratory facilities, storage areas and other related facilities, is being increased to 22,860 square meters with the addition of new infrastructure.
In the initial years, CRDC put lot of thrust in developing catalysts and refinery support work. However, with growing intellectual strength, CRDC expanded its horizon to several other research areas such as corrosion, fouling, engine testing, modeling & simulation, biotechnology, process development, reactor designing, polymers & petrochemicals and alternative energy.
The primary focus of CRDC has always been industrial R&D and applied research to support its business lineup, rather than basic research. Both short-term and long-term projects are undertaken, while a few high-priority projects are pursued in mission mode. In late 2017, a new R&D strategy framework was conceptualized in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The objective of this new framework is to pursue various R&D domains with different optimal research strategies.
Pivoted around sustainability, new and improved chemistries developed at CRDC not only foster greener process paths with greater environment-friendliness, but also yield superior products. Similarly, advanced reactor designs offer higher efficiencies, greater flexibility, reduction in waste and an overall reduced environmental impact.
CRDC is a confluence of various domains of science and technology, comprising of fully equipped laboratories for in-house cutting-edge research and development.
The Centre has the following state-of-the-art research laboratories at CRDC:
The analytical laboratory of CRDC acts as a backbone for all Business units of BPCL, while also catering to the analytical and fuel-testing requirements of internal R&D projects.
Core Areas:
Strengths:
The laboratory facilities that the Analytical group has at its command are:
Catalyst development has been a major strategic thrust area for CRDC. Apart from research and developmental work. Other major functions undertaken by the Catalyst laboratory are evaluation of vendor catalysts and making recommendations in this respect to the refineries; assessment of the health assessing health of the in-use catalysts for FCC, HDS, SRU, CCU, HCU etc. and MTBE catalysts evaluation and suggesting recommendations.
Major equipment and facilities used at the state-of-the-art catalyst laboratory are presented here, some of which reflect their full-scale counterparts in the production plants:
Biofuels lab, with a capable team of scientists and knowledge base, has been established in view of emerging importance of biotechnology. The equipment and facilities used at the biofuel lab bridges the domains of biology and chemistry. The thrust is on developing novel bioprocesses for the production of biofuels and biochemicals.
Major equipment facilities at the biofuel laboratory are:
Fermentation - Anaerobic Workstation, Biosafety Cabinet, Bio fermentor, ULPA Biosafety Cabinet
Molecular Biology - PCR Thermocycler, RT-PCR, FPLC, DGGE, Electrophoresis (Horizontal & Vertical), Gel Doc System
Biomass Pre-treatment - HTHP Reactor, Microwave digester
Analytical Instruments - HPLC, UPLC, Fluorescent Microscope, Phase Contrast Microscope
Others - High Speed Ultra-Centrifuge, Humidity chamber, Incubator shakers, Illuminated Incubator shakers for algae, Cold Room facility, Ultra Low Temperature Freezers etc.
It is all about finding wealth from the tail end of refining process.
The equipments and facilities used in residue upgradation lab are given here:
Corrosion and Fouling Laboratory at BPCL Corporate Research & Development Centre is a Centre of Excellence for dealing with corrosion, fouling and phase separation challenges. The major objective of the laboratory is to resolve the corrosion problems in BPCL Refineries, Marketing SBUs and Pipeline division, recommending suitable solutions and taking proactive measures.
Corrosion and Fouling lab has variety of experimental facilities and pilot plants. The facilities are based on various international standards (ASTM and NACE) as well custom made. It includes:
The lab carries out research and development in the fast-expanding field of polymers and petrochemicals.
Some of the equipment used here are:
The Engines & Alternate Energy laboratory carries out research & development in the areas of solar power, biomass gasification, LPG burner efficiency improvement, low grade energy utilization, alternate fuel performance evaluation and testing of fuel additives in engines.
Research, designing, testing and evaluation is performed here using a host of high-tech equipment and advanced facilities. Some of them are as follows:
Process Development group is actively involved in developing new processes and designing new technologies.
Some major equipment and state-of-the-art facilities utilized by this team are listed here.
Research in this area focuses on development of rigorous simulation and optimization tools for refinery processes. The tools and simulation models developed are in extensive use for refinery wide optimization, catalyst and additive selection, trouble shooting, scale-up and design.
Some of the key systems used at this facility are:
CRDC has main thrust to develop novel process intensification systems to upgrade the existing conventional separation technologies in oil refining sector. Separation group has been instrumental in developing various technologies and strategies which are energy efficient, low in capital and operational costs.