Praj Industries, global process solutions company, today signed a licensing and a joint development agreements with Gevo (GEVO) for Gevo's Isobutanol technology. This is further to the MoU signed earlier in the year. The Isobutanol technology will be offered to sugar and starch based ethanol plants, including the majority of Praj's customers, globally.

As part of these agreements, Praj will invest substantial resources in the development and optimization of Gevo's Isobutanol technology applied to feedstocks including sugar cane, sugar beets, cassava, rice, sorghum, wheat and certain cellulosic sugars. This development work is expected to lead to process design packages (PDP) that would accelerate the licensing of the technology.

Praj and Gevo will also commercialize Gevo's technology for making renewable jet fuel (ATJ) from Isobutanol in India. The emission reduction measures adopted by the Aviation sector will be greatly helped by use of renewable jet fuel.

''Given Praj's experience of developing and scaling-up of technologies as well as its extensive customer base globally, Gevo acknowledges that Praj is a great partner to take the Isobutanol technology to these market,'' said Patrick Gruber, Gevo's chief executive officer.

As previously announced, Gevo and Praj expect to license up to 250 million gallons of Isobutanol capacity over the next ten years under this partnership.

In addition to the PDP development, Praj will also contribute engineering services to optimize Gevo's Luverne facility. Initially, the focus will be to optimize energy and water usage at the plant, which is expected to lead to an even lower cost Isobutanol process.

Shares of the company declined Rs 0.35, or 0.42%, to settle at Rs 83.40. The total volume of shares traded was 122,417 at the BSE (Monday).