IIT Madras Joins Hands With Research Arm Of Energy Giant ExxonMobil For Study On Energy And Biofuels

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) on Monday (14 October) said it has entered into an agreement with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (EMRE) for research on energy and biofuels.

In a statement, IIT M said it will be a five-year joint research agreement focusing on biofuels, data analytics, gas conversion and transport, and is intended towards finding low-emission solutions.

EMRE is the research and engineering arm of ExxonMobil Corporation, a leading global oil, natural gas, and petrochemicals company.

A Master Research Agreement was signed by Dr Vijay Swarup, Vice President of Research and Development, EMRE, and Professor Ravindra Gettu, Dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), IIT M.

"India has a very fast-growing middle class and a strong desire to provide energy to its entire population. To achieve this, India has to develop technical solutions, which starts at the research level. We believe that collaborations between companies such as ourselves and universities like IIT Madras are the key to identifying such solutions", Swarup was quoted as saying in the statement.

According to IIT M, one of the projects being taken up under this research collaboration is to develop novel approaches to convert Indian agriculture residue biomasses to sugars and high-value chemicals.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)