As West Asia turmoil exposes LPG import vulnerabilities, CSIR- IICT labs in Hyderabad and Pune are racing to commercialize a homegrown fuel that burns cleaner, costs less, and could save India ₹9,500 crore annually.
For decades, India’s cooking gas story has been written in the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf. Nearly 21 million tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) flow into the country each year, fueling the kitchens of over 10.5 crore households under the Ujjwala scheme. But that pipeline comes with a price—not just the ₹9,500 crore annual import bill, but a strategic dependency that the ongoing West Asia crisis has made painfully visible.
Now, a quiet revolution brewing in two of India’s premier chemical laboratories is offering an escape route. Dimethyl Ether (DME)—a clean-burning synthetic fuel that can be blended with LPG without changing a single cylinder or stove—is moving from research papers to pilot plants, with scientists and policymakers increasingly convinced that the country’s energy future could be homegrown.
“The current over-dependence on Middle-Eastern fuel is a strategic vulnerability that Indian science can now solve,” said Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), during a briefing in Hyderabad earlier this month .
A Tale of Two Labs, One Mission
The push toward DME commercialization is being driven by parallel—yet complementary—efforts from two CSIR powerhouses.
At the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) in Hyderabad, researchers have taken an audacious approach: capturing industrial carbon dioxide emissions and converting them directly into DME. In a landmark partnership with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), IICT scientists are perfecting a Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technology that turns a greenhouse gas into fuel.
“It’s the ultimate waste-to-wealth model,” a senior IICT scientist explained. The institute recently commissioned a Fixed-cum-Fluidised Bed Reactor (FBR)—the first of its kind in India—designed to produce high-purity hydrogen and DME simultaneously.
Meanwhile, 600 kilometers west in Pune, the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) has taken a different route. After years of grappling with a fundamental challenge—the lack of an efficient catalyst—the NCL team led by Dr. Thirumalaiswamy Raja has cracked the code.
“China and some European countries had refused to give their catalyst technology to India,” said Rajesh Date, director of Atrium Innovations, which is partnering with NCL to scale up the technology . Today, NCL holds five patents for its indigenous catalyst, which operates at moderate conditions—around 10 bar pressure—and has demonstrated stability for over 15,000 hours of continuous trial.
The Science of Seamless Transition
Why does DME matter for an average Indian household? The answer lies in chemistry—and convenience.
Dimethyl Ether (CH₃–O–CH₃) is chemically similar to LPG but offers distinct advantages. It burns with significantly lower soot and particulate matter, produces minimal sulfur oxides (SOx), and has a high cetane number that makes it efficient for compression-ignition engines.
But the game-changer is what engineers call “drop-in” compatibility. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has already issued standard IS 18698:2024, permitting up to 20 per cent DME blending with LPG for domestic, commercial, and industrial applications. Crucially, scientists confirm that blending up to 8 per cent DME requires no modifications to existing cylinders, regulators, hoses, or burners.
For higher concentrations, NCL has already developed a patented burner prototype capable of operating in flexible mode—from 100 per cent LPG to 100 per cent DME and everything in between. Tested at the LPG Equipment Research Centre in Bengaluru, the burner achieves 74.5 per cent thermal efficiency, outperforming conventional household stoves that typically operate at 64–68 per cent.
The Economic Calculus: ₹9,500 Crore in Play
The numbers driving India’s DME push are staggering.
India imported approximately 21 million tonnes of LPG in 2024 . With global prices volatile and supply chains vulnerable, scientists estimate that replacing just 8 per cent of LPG consumption with DME—the threshold requiring no infrastructure changes—could generate foreign exchange savings of nearly ₹9,500 crore annually.
To put that in perspective: substituting 8 per cent of the LPG used by India’s 10.5 crore Ujjwala households would require a DME production capacity of roughly 1,300 tonnes per day . Current pilot capacities—250 kg per day at NCL, with IICT’s reactor adding more—are a fraction of that. But the roadmap is clear.
From Lab to Market: The Scale-Up Timeline
The transition from laboratory curiosity to industrial reality is now unfolding in measurable steps.
NCL, which has successfully scaled its process from 500 milligrams to 250 kg per day, is now preparing its next leap. Within the next six to nine months, the institute aims to establish an industrial demonstration plant with a capacity of 2.5 tonnes per day in collaboration with a process engineering partner. ONGC has already tied up with NCL to produce DME at its Hazira facility.
If that demonstration succeeds, the path opens for commercial plants ranging from 50 to 100 tonnes per day—and eventually, plants capable of 100 to 500 tonnes daily.
In Hyderabad, IICT’s partnership with BHEL is similarly advanced, with scientists exploring pathways to produce DME from industrial carbon emissions. The institute’s recent industry interaction brought together 75 entrepreneurs from micro, small, and medium enterprises, signaling readiness for technology transfer.
Beyond Cooking: The Multi-Sector Potential
While the immediate focus is on domestic cooking—where LPG shortages hit hardest—DME’s applications extend far beyond the kitchen.
As an automotive fuel, DME’s high cetane number makes it an excellent candidate for compression-ignition engines, offering a cleaner alternative to diesel. In industrial applications, it can serve as a propellant in aerosol products, replacing ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) . The chemical industry also sees potential in DME as a feedstock for producing lower olefins, dimethyl sulfate, and methyl acetate.
Perhaps most significantly, DME production offers a pathway to utilize India’s abundant coal reserves and biomass. In the long term, methanol for DME production can be sourced through coal gasification or from agricultural residues—creating a circular economy that converts waste into wealth.
Challenges and Opportunities
Despite the momentum, significant hurdles remain.
The cost of DME production, particularly from carbon capture routes, needs to compete with imported LPG. Distribution networks must be adapted, and consumer awareness built. And while BIS standards exist, large-scale blending requires coordinated policy support from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
But the geopolitical context is accelerating the conversation. With the West Asia crisis causing fresh disruptions, the strategic case for DME grows stronger by the week.
“Substituting LPG with DME does not require any change in the existing infrastructure,” said Dr. Ashish Lele, Director of NCL, emphasizing the low barrier to adoption . “Domestic production of DME from methanol is the fastest way to reduce dependence on imported LPG.”
For the 20 households that participated in IICT’s pilot project in collaboration with the Kanthi Group, the transition was nearly invisible. The fuel performed identically. The cooking experience was unchanged. But the implications were profound.
As Dr. D. Srinivas Reddy, Director of CSIR-IICT, noted during the institute’s industry interaction last week, the focus is on translating laboratory research into technologies that industry can adopt . “We are focusing on indigenous processes that strengthen domestic manufacturing and reduce import dependence,” he said.
The vision now extends beyond pilot projects. Scientists are talking about a “DME Village” concept—entire communities eventually powered by this indigenous fuel. And with the Union government’s “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-Reliant India) vision as a backdrop, the timing appears ripe.
As one scientist put it: “We’re not just changing how we cook or power our vehicles. We’re engineering a cleaner, more secure future.”
– Sudhakar Bhima
