IndianOil inaugurates BS-VI Emission Testing Facilities

India’s Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, inaugurated the BS-VI Emission Testing Facilities at IndianOil’s R&D Centre in Faridabad last Saturday. The new testing facilities are designed to test all types of fuels, such as petrol, diesel, ethanol-blended petrol, biodiesel, CNG, LNG, Hydrogen-CNG and second generation (2G) ethanol blends, to ensure that they meet BS-VI vehicle emission norms that are to be implemented across India by April 2020. In addition to generating emissions data, the facilities will also evaluate fuel blends for energy efficiency and engine durability.

During Pradhan’s visit to the R&D Centre in Faridabad, Sanjiv Singh, chairman of IndianOil, briefed him on the multifaceted research programmes of the R&D Centre and their successful adoption in the company’s business verticals.

Addressing senior officials and scientists at the R&D Centre, Pradhan exhorted them to ensure that the benefits of their research reach the common man and benefit him in every possible way. Complimenting them for developing a nano-additised battery for use in e-rickshaws, with better efficiency and longer life than commercially available batteries, he urged its commercialisation as soon as possible.

Pradhan also lauded the efforts of IndianOil R&D in commercialising Indane Nanocut, the industrial version of LPG for the metal-cutting industry. He took keen interest in the centre’s R&D efforts in new process and product technologies like OCTAMAX, intelligent instrumented pipeline inspection gauge (IPIG), 2G-ethanol and the various catalysts developed for refinery and petrochemical plant operations. Pradhan said he hoped that IndianOil would take a quantum leap in the alternative and renewable research area in the next three to four years.

IndianOil’s R&D Centre, established in 1972, is India’s foremost centre of excellence in downstream petroleum R&D. With a portfolio of more than 550 active patents in India and abroad, the centre lends the much needed backend support to the company in the form of proprietary research and commercialisation capabilities in lubricants, refinery processes & pipelines operations, fuel additives, catalysts, alternative & renewable energy sources, engine testing, materials sciences and environmental sciences.