Sunil Samanta

Sunil Samanta
Rising India, Sunil Samanta web designer

Monday 26 September 2011

Biofuel as Future Fuel - The LPG to be replaced by BAFF

Disappointed with galloping LPG prices burning your pockets? Don't worry. Two students from IIIT DM (Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing), Kancheepuram, an institution incubated by IIT Madras campus, have come up with a cost-effective bottled bio-gas fuel which not only acts as a substitute for your cooking gas but also helps manage kitchen waste.

Bio-fuels As Future Fuels (BAFF), a project by Kunal Bhambhani and Swagat Sharma who are on a mission to bring in a bottled bio-gas while keeping the environment clean, has already drawn the attention of many.

“The inspiration behind the BAFF was the amount of waste we noticed in Indian cities. A large chunk of the waste is coming from our kitchens,” say Kunal and Swagat. “We were aware of various gobar gas projects initiated by the government in rural areas, but we want to develop something on that lines for the urban India too.”

But what inspired them the most was ARTI, an Ashden award winning technology in Pune that uses kitchen waste to run biogas plant. “We thought a step ahead and we wanted to use the idea to produce a bottled bio-gas, which acts as a substitute for cooking cylinder.”

The new cylinder will help the cities remain clean, as it uses the waste from vegetable markets, hotels and residential areas.

It may take a while to make their dream a reality, as a compression technology has to be built to use the gas in a compressed form as a substitute for LPG cylinder. But they assure that the new cylinder will be priced Rs. 100 less than the existing price of the gas cylinders.

Since they want to start a manufacturing unit of household gas cylinders with the compression technology, the initial capital is going to be huge. However, the duo did not have to sweat it out to raise funds. A few angel investors came forward to help them. They will provide a total of Rs. 60 lakhs in two tranches -- Rs. 15 lakh initially, and Rs. 45 lakh later to market the product.

“There is no point in building a prototype as it is not a small machine. So, we plan to have an experimental set up and then go for a proper investment of Rs. 2 crore and start manufacturing compressed gas,” they explain.

Kunal and Swagat have no plans to sell the idea to anyone. “It's our idea and both of us are motivated to make this a reality. We do not want to remain just technologists. We want to be social entrepreneurs and bring about a positive change in the society. We are not just getting rid of the waste but we create renewable energy too. Ours is a green product.”

They are not just going to be satisfied with just one product. “We do not want to restrict ourselves to just biogas alone. We want to produce many more green products. Biogas is only one of them,” they say.

“We know that biofuel and biodiesel also have the potential. That is why we have named our product, BAFF (Biofuel as Future Fuel). We want to see the logo of BAFF all over India like that of Indian Oil. That is our dream.”

1 comment:

  1. first of thank for think about this kind of creative idea. i am try to making a project of drive the 2 wheeler scooter with biogas . but problem aries that how the bottling the biogas in cylinder . i am also want a partner of you, if u bottling any cylinder of biogas then plz contact with me .
    Thanks

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