Biofuels and Bioenergy

Reliance Industries has committed a significant R&D effort in the area of renewable energy and bio-chemicals. The current focus at RIL is in four key areas: Agri-residue to kerosene; Jatropa to bio-diesel, algae to bio-crude and cellulosic sugars, and syngas to bio-chemicals, e.g., isoprene and butadiene. This presentation will mainly focus on role of synthetic biology and engineering to make these technologies commercially viable. Innovations in biology especially synthetic biology had made it easier to leverage living micro-organisms to produce products useful for human life and civilization. We at RIL have developed cutting edge tools and technologies for synthetic biology to utilize the fullest potential of this opportunity. We are exploring the use of micro-organisms like algae and natural photosynthesis, which forms the fundamental basis for bio-crude and other value added products such as proteins from algae. Algae, in particular, are highly efficient convertors of sunlight to stored energy. Advances in synthetic biology and gene editing can enable significant increases in productivity or overall photosynthesis. Coupled with the availability of different high-throughput technologies and bioinformatics platform along with innovative engineering breakthroughs, algae can potentially provide opportunities to significantly impact different facets of human life and civilization. To be commercially competitive, improvements in cultivation systems, biology, harvesting, and maximizing oil yield from biomass are still needed. This presentation will cover learnings from our algae research and will feature an amalgamation of engineering and biology. In parallel, applications of synthetic biology in E.coli and Clostridium with cellulosic sugars and syngas as feed, has made it possible for us to produce many high value bio chemicals. This presentation will cover use of modern biology tools and learnings from our algae and bio-chemical research.